Vulpine Wizard
by SmilingJester
Summary: Death saw fit to save Harry Potter from his uncle when the man saw fit to stab the young man. A careless toss later and Harry found himself alone in the Mojave Desert, confused and scared. The Potter heir was now tasked with the immense task of surviving in the desert full of horrors and hardships. M for Violence and Vice.
1. 1 - Not my Fault

**So I got writers block and was playing Fallout. I thought, "Wow, I love this game! I need to make a story in it!" And thous, this story was born! I made this before the... fifth? Chapter of Anko potter and I think in the middle of my Forced Soldier story. I'll still be working on those by the way, but this is all for my own fun and enjoyment, so why I love you all so very much, I just can't force myself to write for a story when I'm not feeling it. I'll feel it again soon and get the next chapter out, but I have a backlog of this to hold y'all over. I hope you enjoy this new addition to my stories!**

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><p>Chapter 1 - Not my fault<p>

"Oh shit NO!" Death cried as he watched a young boy about to be stabbed by his drunk uncle. "Fate will be all over my ass if that happens! AGAIN!" Death reached into the world and grabbed the young child of thirteen and threw him out of the way to another dimension before the uncle could kill him. In his haste, he wasn't watching where he threw the boy. The throw being more of a haphazard toss over the shoulder than moving something out of the way of harm. Left behind in the boy's place was a stray spirit and a scared Vernon. Death plucked the spirit out of the realm, thinking one of the critters had gotten loose again. 'Fucking stupid things. Always wanting freedom. Give them heaven and they still run! This one looks evil though... So back to hell with ya~'

After he sucked the spirit back into the pits of hell that was his stomach, he exhaled a sigh of relief, "Woo! Crisis adverted!" Death looked around his section of the universe, but did not see the Fate's chosen one. "New crisis created! Shit! Uh, uh, uh. Not my domain anymore~!" The god sang out in horror as he ran away from the scene. Death accidentally took Fate's old chosen one too soon, a 'Eddard Stark' and she kicked his ass for centuries for that offense, so he did not want to be anywhere near the scene when it was discovered. His mistake would not be noticed for a long while as Fate had more confidence in humanity to let it be for a few years at a time as she concocted more entertainment in other realities.

[Line Skip]

"No uncle, no!" I cry with my eyes closed. When the knife blow doesn't come, I crack open my eyes and see what is stopping the man, only to see that Vernon is nowhere in sight, that I am somehow in a concrete building. How did I get here? Checking around myself, I see only a room full of disrepair and broken furniture with crap all over it. I probably shouldn't make a nois-, my stomach took this mental command as a signal for rebellion. It let out a roaring growl from five weeks living off bread crumbs and burnt food coupled with the start of puberty. Thank you body, for finally letting me know you are hungry in the worst place imaginable.

With cation in my every movement, I get to my feet, weary of anyone who heard that roar and walk around the room to search for something to tell me where I am. With the search is my hunt for some food. Though, judging by just how bad this building is, I don't think I'll find anything more than a squatter.

I open up one of the desk draws of the many I see through the building, but I find nothing but bottlecaps in the draws. 'Why are there so many bottlecaps around?' I just close the draw back up, leaving it undisturbed before going off hunting further into the building, I notice the place's structure gets worse and worse as I advance. I soon come to a hall with the ceiling collapsed to the ground, but that isn't what shocks me. Under the rubble is a man who is obviously dead, but his body is very bloated and yellow, which stands out in his tattered white lab coat. In front of him is a bag which I grab when I get over my fear of the dead body. He isn't using it and it could have some food.

I move back to the room I came in from and open the bag. Inside is a journal, some books and a thermos. I snatch the container out of the bag and open it. The seal lets out a hiss and that is my only warning that this may not be food.

A mist floods out of the container and it seems to attack my face. In my terror, I take a gasping breath which might not have been the safest thing to do with a poison cloud in front of my face. It flows like a liquid down my throat ,into my stomach and my body begins to burn!

It burns more than time Vernon forced bleach down my throat and the bite of a basilisk combine! It feels like my body is melting only to heal again than melt once more! I try to scream, but I can't even tell where to push the air anymore!

Then... it stops. Just like that. It vanishes into thin air like it never existed. My body doesn't even ache, I even feel better than I did before, if a bit tired from this whole ordeal. So very tired. On this sole thought, I lose control of my body and crash to the ground.

"Argh," I moan as I get to my feet, sore all over, most in the lower back and head. The rest of my body is just a mess of aches and dull pain though. Once I am able to stand, I look around to see a crumbling building. What? How did I get here? Where is my cupboard? Did Vernon abandon me AGAIN?! Cursing to myself, I stumble out of the room Vernon put me in. "Just like last year. I come back from Hogwarts and he throws my ass in the sewer! At least I don't have to walk through waste to get back to the house again." That was a horrible experience and the smell clung to me for weeks. Vernon and his "No water for freaks" policies at their finest.

As I walk, I suddenly become aware of something thumping against my side. Looking down, I see an old wore satchel on my hip. Curious, I open it to find books inside it along with some canned goods near the bottom. At the sight of the food, my stomach roars. Hm? Why am I so hungry? I've only been in the cupboard for two days and I had a big meal at the end of school.

Shrugging it off as me being a growing teen, I pull one of the cans out and opened it with the tab. Cold beans, YUM! I dig into the food with relish as I walk through the building. These were my favorite meal to take from the pantry back at the house before Vernon found out I sometimes raid his food supply. That was one beating that I don't wish to experience again. Not that any were pleasant, but that one nearly killed me to the point where even Dudley thought his dad went a tiny bit too far, that was until Vernon told him that I was stealing his portions, then everything was right with the world for the boy.

I discard the empty can into a corner of the room. No one will care with this place being so rundown. I finally find a door in the maze and when I open it, the sun blinds me something fierce. It takes a while to blink the light down to a manageable level, but when I do, I see a sight that closes my throat. An endless desert full of ruins and what looks like giant scorpions scurrying around the sands. I don't think Vernon did this to me unless he knew a place where there are giant man-eating scorpions, but I feel that is not even normal to the wizarding world.

I look at the bag on my hip and pull out the journal first. Maybe someone left something in it for me?

_April 25, 2275_

_I have finally done it! I have found the secret lab to that bastard Hannes! That asshole thought he could hide this from me, but now I have it! Sure going through all those scorpions was dangerous and sure I lost Jim about five days into the desert, but it will be worth it when I get my hands on that bastard's experiments on radiation and animals!_

_Then who will be the one laughing in the face of science, not Hannes, oh no! No! It will be doctor Keyes, human and animal doctor extraordinaire! They may think me mad, but with Hannes' research, they will worship me as if I were a god that I am!_

Well... This seems to be written by a lunatic. Man, this guy was so far out of touch with reality that he thinks it's 2275. Ridiculous. A clicking sound echoes to my right which draws my attention away from how mad the writer sounded. Glancing over, I see a huge cockroach, huge as in the size of a medium hieght dog, huge. Umm... what?

The damn thing lets out a roar and charges at me. I give it a swift kick like I do to that dog, Ripper. Gods above I despise that little beast! My old trainer breaks the creature's face with a crunch and it flees in pain. Maybe "Keyes" can explain what the hell that was. I immediately notice that the handwriting is much messier in this entry.

_April 26, 2275_

_Well... I fuck up. I found the lab, but I broke one of the seals and now I can feel whatever thing it held burning my insides like a fire from - from the great war. Damn airborne forms! Due to the blood flooding out of my pores, I will not survive this. Amazing what trauma can do to your psyche really. I haven't thought clearer in years._

_I'll try to get out, but I don't think I will. I'm taking one of the canisters with the word fox on it. I think it is one of his mutations on the fox gene. I'm also taking his doctor notes and books as this man was a genius, far above even I. Even on the first page, his knowledge blew mine out of the waters and it was so amazing I can't even be mad. Imagine, me not being mad at someone smarter than me._

_I can only guess that the genes are trying to bond with my own and my body is rejecting everything about it. It was quite painful, but I think my nerves are shot now. I wonder what canister I opened, but I've already left the room and there is no way I am going back._

_The building is starting to fall around me. I must have set off one of the traps. Man, I fucked up even that. I can be heartened that the man's research dies with the building though. There is no telling what would happen if someone finishes this work!_

A large blood splatter covers the bottom of the page, obscuring the words. It looks like the man tried to dry it off to some success as the rest of the book is alright. I flip through the book further to see if there is more. When the blood splatter fades into a little stain, I find more writing.

_This is it. I thought I could get out of this alive, but the ceiling caved in on me now. I managed to get my bag out of the way unharmed, but I am not moving anymore. I hope whoever finds this puts the knowledge to good use and destroy the container. I wouldn't wish the pain of the fire on anyone. Not even those bastards of the Legion. Even sick slavers like them don't deserve this._

_This is Doctor Keyes, ex-follower of the Apocalypse, saying his farewell to the world and I hope god can forgive me for what I have done in the name of science. All I wanted was to be remembered in this cruel, dead world. To not be just a memory, but a hero._

I close the journal and look around the bag for more books. I make sure to check around before I draw out another. I don't want to be attacked by that freaky cockroach again. The next is a zoology book on "The wasteland and what goes bump in the night!" Written by Doctor Hannes.

I soon find myself enthralled in the words and pictures. The more I read, the more scared I get. The cockroach I kicked looked suspiciously like the radroach in the book and the entry doesn't ease my nerves. _"While cowardly, the radroach is dangerous in numbers to a normal person. Crushing its antennae will put it in a frenzy, much like the Giant Ant in the east and it will attack anything that moves until it dies."_ I head back inside once reach the end of the page and finish the book as standing under the desert sun is not too pleasant for my Scottish conditioning.

I finish the book which has over a hundred species plus where they are documented to be found as well as their 'Origin.' Every entry speaks of after this Great war where a nuclear fire ripped through the land a few centuries back. The scariest entry is the Ghoul. It tells about people who are overcome by radiation and now attack anything not a ghoul to consume them. It tells that they die like any human and the myth that they only die by a shot to the head is false. They are honest to god zombies apparently. Good thing this is written by some mad man or I would have been freaked out.

The next is a Botany book that Hannes wrote as well. It spoke of all the poisonous plants and good plants, each having a radiation scale on how much radiation it gives to consume the edible portions. It even tells how to pick them which is nice to know.

The more I read, the more I believe the books which annoys me to no end. Am I really that gullible that I would believe that this is the apocalypse almost three hundred years in the future! That is just stupid! Man, I feel like the average wizard reading the newspaper.

Sighing into my hands, I put the books away and go to sleep on the ground, under a desk to block some of the wind that gets through the broken windows. When I awaken, I leave the building after eating some food I find in the bag. It has about seven cans of beans which will last me seven days, so I need to get back to my relative's house before I starve, I guess I can beg for food when I find people. I seem to be either in the middle east or America due to being in a desert. How did I even get here?

On guard as the scorpions run around, stinging little two-headed bunnies... … "Wha?" I double take at the bunnies to see if I was wrong. Nope, they have two heads on their shoulders Yeah... I think the journal and books were right a bit. That is a Radrabbit, tastes great, but has a large amount of radiation in its bones to jump great distances. 'Didn't do that one any good though.'

Shaking my head from the thoughts of being in the Apocalypse, I move on and away from the extremely dangerous armoured scorpions. I pick a random direction and begin my trek away from this mess.

The next morning, I find myself sleeping in a burnt out futuristic hovercar. When I awaken, something feels funny about my body. Not that bad, but different than when I went to sleep. Oh, I hope I don't have bugs on me. Spiders and the like are okay, but ticks are annoying to pick out of my hair.

I crawl out of the car and continue walking until I scratch my head, feeling a little pain when I run my hand over my stuck up hair. I push down the large knot of hair and when I do, it sounds like someone covered one of my ears, but I know for a fact that I didn't.

Eyes wide, I sprint back to the car and using my oversized sleeve, I clean a window to the best of my ability. Looking into the window, I see a new addition to my head. In my new brownish black hair, I have two long vulpine ears sticking out of my head on the sides near the top of my head. They aren't straight up, but in a more relaxed position. When I flick them, I find the feeling and try to manipulate it.

The ears start to move on my will as if I always could and I start hyperventilating. 'I'm a freak! Just like what Vernon always said! What did I do?! How did this happ-... How did I get the satchel? Why did I wake up so sore, but not in pain like when I usually do?'

Hunting through the bag, I do not find the container Hannes took. 'Oh my fucking god! I got hit with the genes like Hannes did! How did I survive?! Maybe it's not lethal, maybe Hannes just died before it was finalized?! That must be it! I'm not a freak of nature, I'm a freak of science! It is not my mom or dad's fault! It's not my fault!

Not my fault! Not my fault! Not my fault! Not my fault! Not my fault! Not my fault! Not my fault! Not my fault! Not my fault! Notmy fault! Notmy fault! Notmy fault! My fault! My fault! My fault! My fault! My fault! My fault! My fault! Myfault! Myfault!Myfault!Myfault!'

When I come out of my panic attack, I see it is nightfall and I am on the ground, very hungry and sunburnt. I have to groan in pain as I move, my muscles extremely stiff from lying on the concrete for who knows how long. Ever touch of the ground on my skin hurts from the first degree burns.

My stomach roars up and kicks me in the chest, demanding food after so long without. I must have been out for days to be this hungry! I gobble down a can of beans to satisfy the monster, I didn't even notice myself as I tore the lid off with my canines in my haste. Well, I didn't until I finished eating that is.

Poking my canines, I find them sharper and more pronounced. More dog like, but not enough to make my lip lift up. I just accept the change, too tired to care and move on as I stand up slowly, eyes scanning my dark surroundings, the moon not even more than an eighth full tonight. There is a rabbit to my left that is nibbling on the left over sauce from my beans and it looked appetizing. So appetizing... My stomach demands food at that moment and I follow my screaming instincts without a thought.

Before I know what I'm doing, I have one of the rabbit's head in my mouth and I am viciously shaking it until a sharp crack echoes. The other head struggles, but I just wring its neck before I eat its little body. The metallic taste of blood fills my mouth and it is orgasmic in flavor. So much better than the greasy food that I thought was the best at Hogwarts!

Blinking when the rabbit is nothing, but a pile of bones and left over meat, I look myself over. My torso is splattered in blood that I find myself licking off like a dog as well as my tail that got in the way of me eating, so I lick that clean too. My tongue getting most of the blood off.

As I hold the fluffy limb, I pause mid lick. Tail? Looking down, I find it is attached to the bottom of my spine and is a deep red, like the coat of a red fox. I give it an owlish blink and a tug, immediately stop the physical abuse with a yelp. That hurt!

I take a few dozen deep breaths so I don't lose myself again. I must have gotten it in my panic attack along with my teeth. It doesn't feel bad, I barely notice the tail as it is like an arm, a part of me. I guess the transformation took a bit to finalize and it happened over my comatose state. This only adds more evidence that I messed up big time and can't remember doing it. I must have breathed in the gas like Keyes did. Must have thought it held food or something. Stupid Potter, opening things that must have been clearly labeled!

Breaking out of my self-loathing, I plan for my life ahead of me. I know that this place doesn't have tailed people because even that is weird, so I stuff the tail down my leg, it comes out the bottom of my pants due to the length. However, the tail only shows about half a foot, but the pant's bulge is too much. I will need a cloak or something baggier than loose jeans to hide it. The ears will need a hat which should be easy enough to get.

Packing away everything I took out, I continue on my journey, now with the goal of getting a cloak or something equally big as well as a hat that isn't took uncomfortable.

It takes three weeks for me to find anything resembling civilization. Using the Botany book, I found stuff to eat as well as made medicines for when something got hurt. It was rather easy to make the medicine with my potion background, no matter how bad I was at it. I knew how to grind up types of plants to a paste or powder as well is mix them about just right. I hope Snape never finds out I actually use the things he teaches or he'd just point out how he helped me survive and how Potters can't do anything on their own.

Another thing that helped to even know what to do was the medical texts that Keyes stole from Hannes. They are so detailed about what to do for EVERYTHING. Be it a little bug bite to losing a lung in a firefight, it documents everything in five marked books. "Survival medicine," "Combat Medicine," "Surgeon Medicine," "Animal medicine," "Chemical Medicine" as well as books on anatomy with well documented pictures. There are even books theorizing how to make prosthetic that are attached to nerves! Hannes even made some that work if his pictures are anything to go by, he stopped at the eye only because he didn't understand the brain enough at the time!

Since I have nothing better to do, I read and reread these books for the entire trip. This trip took some scary turns when I was chased by what I thought were ghouls, but with all my running from Dudley and young body, I easily outran them and I find my body has better balance due to the tail, so I can easily run along narrow ledges that would make the ghouls fall. After the first day, I kept the tail out of my pants as it was uncomfortable and not hurting anything.

The civilization I found was a ghost town that seems to be made of houses broken beyond repair. The sign told me that I am in a town called Barstow and that Las Vegas is 155 miles away by highway. So I'm in western America.

Looking around the town, I go into one of the more intact houses and begin looting it for food and clothing. I find nothing on the first floor, so I head upstairs and enter the bedrooms, one master and one child. There are skeletons on the beds that are blackened with rot. Ignoring them, I go through their dresser, finding a loose white shirt and a black casual waist coat. I pull them on and they are still big on me, but are warmer than Dudley's hole filled castoffs. The waistcoat holds the shirt close to my body though. I take one of the black shirts and rip it into a bandana that I gently put over my ears to hide them. I instantly dislike it because it cuts some of my hearing off, but I guess I'll get use to it eventually if I want social interaction.

They follow my command and flatten against my skull, allowing me to cover them a bit tighter. They add little poofs to the bandana, but it actually does a fantastic job keeping them out of sight while not muffling them too much! It looks like I just have naturally big hair that I want to control.

In the chest by the child's bed, I find some pants that are made of some brown material. They have two large pockets on the side of the thighs that button close. They are only a bit too big, covering my feet, so I roll up the cuffs. There are another pair of them in the chest, so I put it in my satchel to wear later.

Back in the master bedroom, I hunt under the bed and hit gold. Pulling out a lock box, I take a hunk of junk metal I found and began hitting the lock. Five hours later and with lead arms, I am able to open the box that I already figured out what it held.

Inside is a 9mm handgun. I believe it is a 1911 model type that were popular in America. There are three clips in the box with it that are fully loaded, so I put them in my pocket and the gun in my waistline.

Happy with my find, I barricade the door to the bathroom with chairs as well as put some of the spare clothing that I won't be wearing on the floor to fall asleep on. The next morning and the next few weeks after, I stay in the town and loot it dry. I find some more ammo, but no other guns. The food I find are a few dozen years past their prime. I do find something called stimpacks the medical books told me about and a doctor's bag that has everything to help a broken bone. In the bottom is even a box of empty syringes that I can try to brew stimpacks into. It'll be some intense studying and practice before I will even try to make some though.

When all the supplies dry up, I have to move on down the road towards Vegas. I make sure my gun is fully reloaded and set out. I've had a few run in with radscorpions and some mole rats. I found out that I am rather good with a gun thanks to my wand work experience. After I got use to the bucking, I can easily shoot a target a hundred feet away if I have the time to aim.

That is another thing I noticed in my stay within the desert. My eye sight is ten times better thanks to the fox genes. I can even see in the dark, but the colors are muted at night, never the less, I have an advantage over humans now! Rather upsetting really that I think like that in terms of species.

I stick to the roads for the next month as I wander across the desert. My clothing and body stinks of high heaven due to the lack for clean water around. There are bottles of dirty water that I drink from, but I don't even know what is in them, so why clean myself with what I'm sure is dangerous already. What marks the third month of my stay in the desert is me sleeping under the stars.

Looking down at my filthy clothing and sand encrusted body, I can only comment, "I really, really miss bathes. If only I could just conjure wat.e.r... I forgot I'm a wizard." Snape may be right, I am a moron! The very thought that Snape is right about something other than potions sends a shudder down my spine and kicks my mind into gear.

Focusing on my hand, I repeat in my head, 'I need clean water, I need clean water.' I think of the texture, the feel, the taste and the results of the water. The mantra consumes my mind as I stare at my hand until I have a hand full of water. One second I didn't and the next it is just in my hand, spurting from a little fountain in the middle of my palm. I clean my hands with it before I notice I am sweating and panting from the effort.

Once I notice my weariness, I pass out on the sand. I barely note that my hands hit the ground first. Damn.

After my first success, I slow my travels to a mile a day. I spend most of my time trying to summon water until I can make a galleon of it before I pass out. That took a few months. The best part is that it is permanent or at least can last up to a week in a bottle. There is no reason to waste any of my work for a little experiment when I need the water to survive.

I have never felt more clean than I do with my new water power though. Not even at the Dursleys, but that is more because I was allowed one shower a week. Hogwarts is a close second, but their water is only spelled just to remove grime and dirt, plus magicians stick to the one bath a week thing that people in the early eighteen hundreds had, so being around the guys all the time really brings down the feeling of cleanliness. Ron took it to a level even people in our dorm took offense to and they were worse than the average wizards in hygiene.

Along with the access to clean water comes with a willingness to get dirty. I took to hunting for my prey to sharpen my new found animal instincts like with the rabbit. Eating raw meat doesn't bother me in the slightest even though it should. I think it is because the instincts are messing with my moral compass as well as thoughts on food. Can't be repulsed by your food's basic traits, so it makes them more appealing. It doesn't matter how bloody it looks, it is still good food!

It helps that there was very little edible food around that hadn't already been picked clean by the wild life. The wild life that I beat to death with my hands and tear apart with my teeth. I tried to keep their hides to use, but without a knife, it was a fool's errand to begin with.

Once I could conjure the water up on a whim, I began trying to learn how to summon things which was actually a much easier ball game than the conjuring. It only took a month to learn how to do it on a whim and that turned into another month of mastering banishing and levitating magics. Great compared to the three it took to master the conjuring of a basic element of nature.

After the final day of my levitation practice, which is to levitate and move a boulder for half an hour, I find my first human being or group as it is. I put the gun in my waistcoat's pocket to make myself not as threatening and my tail down my pants. Advancing to them, I notice that they all are wearing these weird outfits of leather with strange hair styles. I am kind of reminded by those new grunge bands that were big in London when I left. One of the people notice me and before I can say hi, they all begin to shoot at me!

I dive behind a rock as their bullets ping off the ground around me. These people just tried to kill me for nothing. NOTHING! I find my lips curling into a snarl and my gun in hand. Clicking the hammer back, I pop out of cover and see the enemy. There are five of them and none of them are bothering to get behind any cover, hell they are standing at least twenty seconds away from the nearest cover.

Taking advantage of the fools, I pop out of my cover and fire at them. My first bullet misses, but it allows me to adjust and I take out one of the three with a bolt action rifle. As he falls with a cry, I shift my aim and empty the clip at them, killing the gunmen and leave the remaining two doing nothing but staring at me.

I drop the empty clip and fumble in a new one. Hitting the slide release, the click echoes the silent area which seems to be the remaining leather wearing punks starter gun. They both pull out a knife and charge me with abandon.

Blinking owlishly at their charge, I put a bullet in one of their heads and two into the last idiot's chest where I think the heart and liver lie. They fall without a sound. I stare at the bleeding bodies and down at the smoking gun in my hand. Aren't I suppose to feel guilty for doing this? Human life is precious and you're evil if you hurt it right?

Dumbledore always preaches forgiveness and not to hurt people. Isn't this against what he tells us to do? Blinking rapidly to clear my head, I move over to the dead and loot their bodies. They must have something useful and they won't need it anymore.

They have a few cans of food on them as well as inhalers, which I think is called Jet and needles full of what I guess to be morphine. Med-X I think is the name for it now, but it's around five times stronger than the stuff, so use must be very little or diluted or else it affects the mind. I don't think the people on the ground used it for medical purposes though.

They have some hunting rifles on them and I take one along with all the ammo I can carry in a separate pouch I liberate off them. Lastly, I take one of their knives and the sheath for it, which finds its place on my belt. I sling the long rifle on my back, taking note to practice with it before I carry on my journey, leaving the dead for the critters.

Once that encounter took place, it seems to let loose the gates and I find bandits around every nook and cranny. I think I am at the worst attack right now though. I am walking down the road and come across a camp. They are everywhere, so I have to of course fight them all once they spotted me. At this point I don't even bother hiding my tail as there is no friendly people around.

I see there are about forty of them, half of which have guns if I go off of the ones charging me. I retreat down the road and hide behind a car that is already exploded so I have no chance of being incinerated if some bandit gets a lucky shot into a fuel tank. Propping my rifle against the hood, I click the safety off and line up my first shot, aiming a bit to the right as I found the sight to be slightly off when I practiced with the rifle.

I squeeze the trigger and the rifle slams into my shoulder, but unlike when I first shot it, I didn't drop it into the sand. The bullet tore through the neck of the lead bandit and into the chest of the one behind him, taking them both down. Loading the next round into the chamber, I squeeze the trigger again and again until it clicks empty. By this point, the bandits have ceased the charge and are now scrambling to find some cover.

This gives me enough time to reload the gun with one of the few clips I have. I take my time and keep all the bandits in my sight, checking around after every shot to see if they are trying to sneak up on me, even though there is no where they can due to being in rather clear land. Amazing they didn't notice my approach really.

Almost every shot I take kills someone due to them running out of cover to try to take me. They do not get even a little close. Soon their numbers are no more, until the gunsmen catch up. They don't know where I am as they were taking their sweet time to reach me, thinking their comrades could kill me.

Their surprised expressions turn into a bloody mess as I start sending bullets down the road at them. They try to take cover, but I have the high ground, what little there is on top of a car pile up, giving me a great view of the domes of their heads. Their friends' corpses already are taking up the prime cover spots, so they are stuck with bad spots or crouching over a dead body. I scalp them all in under ten minutes even with my awful aim.

Moving down the road with my pistol out, I finish off any still moving bandit until I am alone once more. Once again, I stare at the carnage I brought down on these people and wonder why I feel absolutely nothing, but the joys of a good hunt. Isn't straight up executing people a bad thing? I dismiss the thought as unneeded. I won't do to work myself up in a tizzy for nothing but some little like this.

I take all the useful things and place them in a backpack that I also looted from them. My satchel is now for knowledge, a pouch for ammo and backpack for clothing and gear. I take one of the assault rifles from the bandits, a rifle that seems like it has seen some better days and looks like something out of the Vietnam war from the Americans.

This matters not as the clips join my others in the pouch and the rifle replaces my pistol as my close quarters weapon for now. I may need it if I go into a building. Seeing as I have everything now, I approach the building with the rifle raised and go through the town, making as little noise as possible.

It is a ghost town. A ghost town with a lot of food and supplies! I nearly give a woop of joy, but I keep it down as I begin to clear the buildings of any bandits. I find a few sleeping that I take care of with a knife until all the rooms are searched and enemies dead. It is amazing that they slept through an entire gunfight that killed all their friends.

Looking over the dead town, I can't keep in the smile as I think of making this my new home for a bit. I could grow some crops, learn how to build things as this place has a little library in one of the homes and even fix it up with magic!


	2. 2 - Settling in the Desert

**Thank you for the outrageous amount of favorites and follows in just a few days! in the first three, I had thirty favorites and fifty follows. Holy shit! Well, here is the next chapter and I hope you enjoy!**

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><p>Chapter 2 - Settling in<p>

This is exactly what I do for the next year of my life in the desert. I work on everything from day to night and patrol my new little haven. My body grows like it should have thanks to all the exercise I get and now, I'm at a comfortable five six which I never thought I would ever be at and here I am at fourteen being past my goal height! My hair is now the same color as my tail unfortunately or fortunately due to it being the same as mum's hair, but my eyes are still the same if with a little gold flecks in them. The hair is down to my bottom, so I keep it wound in tight bandages except for the last half a foot of it. I think my hair decided that now it's safe from Petunia's bad hair cutting, it wants to make up for the lost time it didn't grow. I do quite like the long hair, so I am all for the growth. My bangs frame my face as I keep them shorter than the rest of my hair. I feel much better about it.

Speaking of my looks, I can finally fit in my clothing now with my new height! I mostly wear a tough white button up along with the same type of pants I wore before, but this time they are gray camo in design. Light enough to wear in the desert, but dark enough to not stand out in the shadows of night will breaking up the solid grey into varying shades. I found a few pairs of them in some burnt out military transport. I have taken to wear no shoes to quiet down on the sounds I make, instead wrapping my feet in bandages or cloth rolls. The last thing is on my head still has the bandana around it, but it is joined by a wide-brim leather farmer hat to keep the sun out of my eyes when I shoot. It even has a strap, so I can let it hang on my back when it's not needed.

My body is mostly muscle as I have no time to not be doing something. It is either taking care of my crops, hunting for food or practicing my magic by fixing up the town. It now looks like it would have before the war and is completely sterile. I could eat food off the walls and not have to worry about disease. Not that I would as that would be weird and a waste of food.

The books in the library were a bust though. All of them were just little history texts on before the great war and it was stuff I already knew as it was only about the Romans and Egyptians.

I stick with rereading and memorizing the medical texts as they can save my life or will let me save someone else's. "_To save a man from a bullet wound, keep steady pressure on the injury and tourniquet the area above to slow the bleeding if it is on a limb. If it is on the torso or pelvis, bandage tightly and move to a safe place for surgery. Consult bullet surgeries for how to extract the offending item._" I like how Hannes made his text easy to understand and well-organized. I make a guess that the man was going to try to mass publish his work for inspiring doctors like I am becoming to learn the trade alone. While I can't be a real doctor just off the books, I do know the theory quite well.

My magic comes to me fine now, more instinctual use than force and image repeating for minutes on end. On a little nudge and willpower, I can do most inanimate type transfiguration. My living transfiguration changes only become disasters and creatures of nightmares that I have to put down if I can't figure out how to fix them in three hours. I can assume that my human ones would be so much worse as we have some complex ass bodies. Though, I would still like to try one day to see if my knowledge of the human body would help that aspect of changing. I still can only conjure water, but I think that is due to me knowing it intimately, not like say, a cheeseburger.

I miss my friends sometimes, especially Hermione, but I love it here in my little haven, though it is starting to get boring and my wanderlust keeps acting up. Damn feeling making me go further and further away from town every patrol until it takes hours to get back at a dead sprint. Does wonders on my stamina though. That does not excuse the added risk that I have been taking though.

This life goes on until three months after the anniversary of finding my little town. Two years after first arriving in the wastelands. On one of my long patrols to look at a town I believe is called Primm, I come back to see bandits taking all my stuff and burning my houses, not even taking anything from the town! They just rolled in and started to burn everything! The nerve of these bastards! I guess I just wasn't paying attention, because I was only a mile away before I saw the flames in the sky. I pull out my hunting rifle and lie down on the hill I find myself on that overlooks my living area.

My gun echoes with a crack and one of the bandit's head explode. This sends everyone in a frenzy and they start shooting at the desert wildly, wasting all their ammo for reasons that are sure to baffle me. All the shots are fired into the wrong direction too. 'This can't be real. No one is this stupid.' Eventually one of them has a misfire and kills a comrade with a shotgun round to the back of the head and then it went even more downhill from there. They started shooting each other as they kill one another until all of the invaders are dead, the last being a draw. I didn't even fire another round and they are all dead! The level of stupidity shown here would have been legendary if it was to be documented. As it stands now, I just shrug my rifle back on my shoulder before rushing down to my town to save what I can.

Looking around my town, I see that most of the houses have been destroyed by the rowdy bunch, leaving just the outskirts and bigger buildings sort of alright. I guess my wanderlust gets its wish for now. No matter how quickly I put the fire out, the buildings are no longer be habitable. Living here is not safe anymore and to be honest, I do not want to move all these bodies. The town can be fixed in a month, but I do want to get a move on anyways. First I would have to loot the bodies to prepare for the trip.

I have to chuckle once more at the sheer stupidity they just showed as I make my way around the town, even though my haven is burning. One person, a child at that, was able to kill the entire group with only a couple of shots. Looking them over, I see that I have the superior gear thanks to my magic and having disassembled and reassembled over a hundred of each of my guns. I know these things in and out enough to repair anything inside it with a wave of the hand. I keep the good pieces of ammo that look professionally made, but scrap the rest for their components. I want to start making my own ammo as my supply is running out. I do not trust my magic to not tamper with the powders though and even if it doesn't, I don't want to lose a gun or hand to test. There is only so much I can fix in a gun without conjuring it and losing a hand would be a death sentence.

In my haste to salvage the remains of my haven, I find the bandits had come in on trucks and by foot, except for one. One was on some dirt bike that must run on electricity as there is very little fuel around, I can hazard a guess that the rider was the leader. I look at the bike and it has a case on the back. In the case is a solar panel and cables with a manual. Reading the manual in a hurry, I find the bike really is powered off electricity using a battery that can be charged by solar power using the panel. It has the reliability of eight hours of energy off of a full charge. It takes nine hours for a charge fully. One day. Amazing what kind of technology is here and yet I live like a medieval farmer.

I see the battery is halfway full, so I figure out how to hook it up, then I go off to collect my gear. Most didn't survive, but the fire hasn't reached my food store yet, so I grab a pack along with all my ammo. Thank the gods above the fire hasn't reached these or I would have nothing left of anything. I have to be quick as I am wandering around inside a burning building after all. I grab a few sets of my clothes on my way out of the lightly burning house. The fire really isn't that big yet in this building thankfully which is why I risk my neck going into it and packing my stuff. I don't have to worry about my books as they are always on my person.

I spend the next few hours watching my haven burn to ashes, too late to save already. The water needed would drain me before I extinguish two houses. It may take quite a bit more than a month to fix this looking at it now. As I looked the men over again out of boredom and to double-check, I found a Kevlar vest, not this strange leather they wear, but one of them is... was now, wearing a vest the military used back home. I clean and fix it up before slipping it on. You never know when you will be shot. I don't know how reliable this thing is as the bandit took a bullet to the skull. That makes the vest meaningless really.

Going back to the bike, I pack away the gear and make sure the box is locked by my magic. It only lasts a few days, but that's enough to counter any thieving attempts when I am not around it. I really need to work on an invisibility spell though to make sure it isn't stolen.

I hop on and do as the manual says to start it up. I slide in the key which was too much of a bitch to find then it should have been and rev the engine to life. I slowly twist the throttle and I flicker forward on the vehicle before I let go of the throttle. Putting a little more confidence in it, I twist the throttle once more and slowly maneuver the bike out of my burning haven. I fall down a few times while moving around the fiery town until I get my balance on the humming machine. I think of it like a broom and I can keep myself from falling mostly. I blame the fact that I never learned how to ride a bike.

As I speed at a steady forty miles down the road, I slowly learn the ways to move the bike around safely. I am lucky that I only have fallen once at these speeds and that is due to a too sharp turn that I only got a little hurt on. I had to transfigure some goggles on because of the wind and sand, but they should hold long enough for me to find myself a pair. I stop at every little shack to loot, but they only hold bottlecaps inside them. I have started a collection of the items though from my patrols. It is amazing how many there are, so my goal as of right now is to get five thousand of them then fuse them together in a large picture of a bottle cap. It's nice to have a little goal other than to survive. The goal of just surviving puts a damper on life.

After having the bandages in my hair unravel on me a few times, I take to sticking my hair down into my shirt to keep the wind from messing it up again. It takes a good five minutes to tie my hair as I haven't made a spell for it yet, so I really don't want to have to fix it up all the time. Finer movement is something I do not have with magic.

For weeks I travel north along the road, taking many detours and stops to pick up things or hunt. I only really spend an hour driving a day as I spend the rest trying to figure out my invisibility spell. I can safely hold it for however long I need, but I need active concentration, so it is good for hiding, not much else. I have gotten it to the point of sticking around without me focusing for half a minute, but it needs to be better for me to use it at all.

A good thing about the bike is that it only whispers across the increasingly mountainous landscape, not attracting the attention of the more vicious wildlife like a deathclaw.

I finally get out of the mountain range I find myself in for quite a time. Thankfully there were streets our I would have broken bones from the many times I would have crashed. To my left as I zoom through the streets is a fenced off area with the sound of mortar fire. I've been hearing the echoes for quite a time, which is why I didn't stop for the day for practice. This is strange just too strange not to look up, so I slow down and notice someone of the road, by the fence.

Dismounting, I draw a pistol and advance on the man. "Hello stranger! That is a mighty fine contraption you have there," the man greets in a thick southern drawl. The man now took the place as the first person not to try to kill me in this world.

"Greetings. What's the deal with the mortars?" I ask cautiously. My gun is visible, but held down by my hip at the ground. It's more of a silent threat not to make a dangerous move, than

an act of pure aggression.

The man frowns and looks back at the fence, "Them Boomers playing with their toys. They like to blow things up in their free time and today is the day they zero in their mortars. I usually bet people to see if they can cross the bombing field a thousand caps, but you look like you are smarter than most folks around here."

One word stuck out to me from what he said, "Caps? I'm sorry but I haven't had human contact since I was a child." I rethought that lie, "Well, not nice human contact. What kind of currency do you deal in around here?" I ask.

"Funny accent you have there, son. I never heard it before. The money we use are bottle caps. The NCR are trying to bring back them paper moneys of the old world, but only they take it so it is mostly useless. I think those slavers, the Legions also use some form of coin, but they are the same as the NCR, except they kill ya if they see ya." The man pulls out a bottle cap and shows it to me.

Furrowing my brow, I look through my pack and pull out one and compare them. "I am so happy that I took to collecting these things," I comment aloud as I look at them. The man gives a loud belly laugh at this. "Well, thank you for the information sir. I should get going though. Have a pleasant day and good luck trying to sucker people out of money." The man gives me a wave as I leave. I keep an eye on him in case he wants to try to rob me when I turn my back, but in the end, the man just smiles and sits back down.

I hop on my bike and take off down the road. In the distance, I see a large tower of lights which means there must be a lot of people. After all those bandits, I really do not feel like dealing with large amounts of people as of now, maybe in a few more weeks, but not now.

I still make stops at abandoned shacks, but with the increase of people, I start avoiding things and going faster to make sure no one follows. I move around the back of the city along the roads that are still mostly there. Due to the conditions of the roads, I am getting slowly better at landing from long jumps on the dirt bike. Thank the gods that this thing is more sturdy than it looks or I'd be walking with something worse than a busted knob. The damn road is all uneven and parts have hills over top of them which is where my jumps come in to play. I nearly wipeout the first time, but after the tenth, I knew not to stay seated and bust a ball on landing.

Once I pass the city, I continue south, keeping to the roads during the night and resting when the sun rises. I am never more thankful to my night vision then now. Without it, I would have crashed so many times at night.

I keep up my practice with my magic and finally make a break through. Instead of making every single part of the bike invisibly, I think of it like my old cloak. It wraps around the bike and it just hides instead of vanishes anything under it. I timed it and it lasts a good five hours on the first attempt. I was so happy that I cooked myself up some cookies. A feat that was hard as hell to do. I replace the sugar with ground up dried pears, so they are not that sweet and the rest of the ingredients are just trial and error. It is more a sweet pear bread than a cookie really.

I come to a familiar sight one day. It's Primm! It seems I have made a LONG circle in my driving. I roll into town with my bike hidden in the shadows of the mountain under an overpowered cloak spell. It is lucky that I can sense magic as all wizards can on some degrees or I would have no idea where I hide anything. My food is with it, leaving me with my rifle and pistol as well as my knife which I transfigured into something far better than the chief's knife it was. It now fits in one of the holsters on my vest. It has holsters on the bottom and on the left shoulder for a knife. My pistol is in the holster at the bottom with the knife where it should be.

My tail is covered by my baggy pants and the tip is wrapped in bandages from my feet up to my shin. It looks a little odd, but the fur doesn't show nor is it obvious, so everything is fine. It is uncomfortable, but I'll let the tail out at night or switch legs every few hours to let it move a bit. I head into the town and find out that the NCR are the military of today in the waste. That answers the question that the old man-made me think up. The soldiers have the town occupied, but it doesn't look like it changed too much with the military presence. Nodding at one of the soldiers who nods back, I head into the town and to the only place that seems to be open. The casino.

Walking in, I see people eating and gambling away without a care in the world. A robot driving around acting as the security force, but not overbearing enough to make people uncomfortable. If not for the books, I would have been freaked out by the machine, but now I just think they are fascinating. It looks like a lively place to be. I go over to the bar and sit down on one of the few stools. An old woman comes over to me, "What will you be having sir?"

"A soda please." I do so miss sugar that is factory made. The artificial flavors are just so different that the few I've had since coming here were great. "That will be five caps." I dig them out as I had the forethought to bring half my "currency" with me.

The woman takes the caps and hands me the soda. "So, you from around these parts stranger?" The woman asks as I take a sip of the cola. I see no malice in her eyes or greed which after dealing with bandits all the time is a breath of fresh air.

Seeing that she is only curious, I answer, "I was. There was a town a few dozen miles over that ridge I ran for a year. Before that I was in Barstow. Some bandits came and burnt my little town down though, so I am mostly just wandering around until I find something to do."

"That's a shame. Those bandits are always bothering us too, but the NCR mostly keeps them in check. If you're interested, I have a job I can give you. You seem a reliable boy." Blinking at her, I nod my head in agreement. "See, we run a mail service through this town so we are always looking for couriers to deliver the packages. The desert is a dangerous place, so we sometimes lose our couriers and we still need to deliver things. Are you interested in earning some money like that?"

That sounds perfect for me. "Yeah... Do you know where I can live though? I have little need for caps as I am now, so putting them towards a home would be nice. The nights here are COLD!" It makes me shiver just thinking about them. That is what I miss about my haven, the nice cover of a roof over my head and warm sheets.

The woman chuckles. "Well we can sell you scrap metal and lumber to build a house inside our town. You'll have to pay taxes and build it yourself, but it would be safe here."

Even more perfect. I give her a Potter grin and reach out to shake her hand. She takes it and tells me to wait. I do so and finish off my cola slowly to savor the taste. The woman comes back with a box and a clipboard. "This goes to the mayor of Nipton. Here is a clipboard to get his signature with. Do not come back without it nor give the package to him before you get it. The man is a snake and likes to try and cheat us." I take the offered items. "Oh, here is a map with all the settlements you'll need to know of for the job if you stick around. I'm sure you will need it for some of the more distant deliveries."

She pulls out a paper map. I open it and she marks where Primm is. The map is of the western half of the USA. "Man. How far reaching is your service?" I find myself asking as I look over all the marked settlements, stretching from Texas into Washington.

The woman hums, "I believe we stop at the border to Canada after they got a more local mail service. Good thing as it takes months to walk there and we lost many couriers on those roads. By the way, my name is Ruby. Ruby Nash. My husband is John Nash. The guy with the terrible acne on his forehead." I turn and find the guy. He indeed has awful acne and looks about the age of Ruby.

"Alright. I'll be back soon. Nipton doesn't look too far," I tell Ruby. "Before I go, do you know where I can find some goggles? The sandstorms around here are killer." She offers an old sturdy pair for ten caps which I easily pay for. I slide them around my neck as I leave the casino.

I make it back to my bike and hop on it after putting away everything. I take off quietly into the afternoon sun down the road and to Nipton. It only takes three hours to get there after I go around Primm. Don't want the soldiers to take me as a threat by flying by their station. I park my bike in an abandoned ruins and cover it with the magical cloak.

Heading up to the town. I see it is a small settlement that looks ripe with all kinds of sin. I can only shake my head at some of the people's behavior. I think I saw a few people doing some lewd actions in alleyways and more people openly doing hardcore drugs. Drugs like Turbo and Slasher, which is one of the most destructive things I've ever seen in my short time here. I saw a bandit use both once when I was trying to sneak around and it made his body go completely rigid for five seconds, I saw even for a distance his eyes zipping around in his head faster than even I could follow. The man went into a beserker state that only ended after he had killed twenty of his friends with a butcher knife and lost both his hands along with the lower half of his jaw.

I find that I don't really care, even with this experience in my memory and I know for sure that I should be blushing when all these women flash their naked selves at me, but I can only feel repulse. These women are not worthy of being one of my mates. They dare think they are worth my time?! It gets worse when I see one of these... waste of spaces let a man tackle them and bang them right there in the street while some of the man's friends pull themselves out of their pants. Little whores, all of them!

… Where did that come from? 'It doesn't matter where that came from Potter, it is true and you know it! You would never mate with some whore that probably would cave under the littlest threat or couldn't stand up in a straight fight!' I continue my march undeterred through the streets of vice as if I hadn't just heard a voice in my head demanding me to shut up and accept that this place is disgusting as hell. Hard to disagree when I believe what the voice tells me which I think is my instincts given a voice.

It is easy to find the mayor's office as it is the biggest building. Most of the vice avoids the building, but there is still some despicable actions and drug deals happening around the building, so it isn't separate from everything or anything like that.

I go through the door to find a man getting pleasured by a prostitute's mouth behind the secretary's desk. Inwardly, I growl at the indecent display of weakness, I mean, I could just pull a gun and the man would not be able to do a thing! I walk over and kick the wood panel to get his attention. The man looks up with a glare. "Can't you see I'm fucking busy?!" The man-whore sneers at me.

I snarl at the man, showing my sharp canines in all their glory. "Where is the mayor? I have a package for him." The man shudders at the sight of my teeth, but points to a sign. I read it and find the office to be on the third floor. If the secretary is like this, then the mayor must be worse. This is just going to be annoying.

I walk up the stairs, trying to ignore the smell of alcohol and sex in the air. It is overwhelming and it hurts my nose. I knock on the mayor's door and hear a "come in." I walk in to see the Mayor. The man is currently mating with a male prostitute on his desk, naked as the day he was born. The man looks weak and seems to have no muscle on him that isn't canceled out by the ton of fat everywhere on his body. An all around disgusting sight to walk in on.

"I have a package. Please sign your name." I somehow keep the growl out of my voice. I hand him the clipboard and he signs his name using the back of the man-of-the-night as a table. The leader hands it back and I see it is his name. I hand him the package.

As I turn to leave. The man calls back, "What's the hurry? I'm sure I can show you a good time as well." I don't even break stride at the offer. The urge to kill springs up into my mind. It would be so easy to kill this weakling. Just reach over and snap his neck or just bury my teeth in his throat.

Wait... What? Man this place is fucking with my head! I pick up the pace and the town is soon behind me. I get back to my bike and take off back to Primm. I get there quickly, but seeing as I will be living here once I put a house up, I slowly approach the guard on my bike.

His gun is raised by the time I stop in front of him. I call over a greetings, "Hello sir! I'm the new courier for Mrs. Nash. I'm here to report a successful delivery."

The guard, a younger gentleman, couldn't be older than eighteen, calls back at me, "What is that contraption you're on boy?!" I inwardly bristle at being called a boy by a man who looks to be only three years older than me.

"A motorbike. A non-combative mode of transportation." I emphasis the non-combative part. The man stares at me for a second before lowering his rifle. I glide the bike past him and pull it around the gas station, out of sight. I then make sure it stays out of sight with the cloaking spell.

I go back into the casino and find Mrs. Nash smoking at her bar. Clipboard in hand, I sit down and she comes over. "I thought you left already... I never caught your name dear."

I answer her, "You can call me... Fox." I really do not want my name known as it can be used to track me down. Though if I goes as an alias, they can track that down, so I'll have to change things up eventually. "I got the signature right here. Please do not give me anymore jobs there. The smell of all the vice makes me want to kill people." I hand the clipboard to her.

The elder looks it over and her eyes widen in surprise. "That trip should have taken at least two days! How did you get there and back so quickly?!"

Seeing as it will be known by tomorrow, I tell her, "When those bandits burned my haven down. I killed them for it. Well... I killed one and then somehow they just killed themselves in some mass hysteria. They came in on these rusty troop transports that took far too many shots to drive again and one was on a dirt bike. It survived, so I use it to get around."

The woman nods. "I heard of those. Never seen them before though, only a few hundred thousand were made before the bombs fell apparently. Well here is your pay, fifty caps. If you're still interested in the jobs, please come in and I will usually have a package waiting. Now. That home thing you be wanting. I have enough scrap in the back for one house, but it will be expensive. Seven hundred caps for it all. The tax is a hundred caps a year which I've added to the price." I nod. I only have six hundred some caps right now.

"Okay. Since I will be building the house with no help as well as working for you for probably a while, can I get it down to six hundred caps and I will pay right here and now." She looks hesitant, but when I put the sack of caps on the table, she agrees. Always a good thing to have definite money instead of waiting on a debt to be paid. This must be the worst place to have a long-term debt with how anyone could die the very next day.

Ruby calls John over and tells him to lead me to the metal. We go around the back and he opens one of the loading bay doors. Inside is a bunch of junk, but in a corner is a pile of sheet metal and wooden beams. "Have at it."

Looking at the pile, I can only sigh out, "This is going to be a while."

The first thing I do is hunt down a carpentry book, which takes me five days alone. I finally come across one in the possession of the NCR Lieutenant. I buy it off him for a bottle of whiskey and three gallons of my conjured water after he saw what I was drinking. I spend the next night reading it and hunting down a hammer, saw, boxes of nails and a tape measure. Much easier than finding a book and it cost less. That bottle was a good fifty caps worth of labor. Ruby bought the skins I have on me, I have thanks to using a blade on animals now, to use on her casino maintenance and trade which helped me net a few more caps for the payment.

I begin the blueprints after I learn the book well enough. It will be a one room house with enough room for a bed and work station while not feeling too cramped as well as a garage in half of it. I am lucky the land is uphill, so I'll have no drainage problems.

I start the foundation with the wood and concrete slabs I took from the ruins around town. Moving the slabs was no laughing matter and I had to do it at night with magic because the thing was a few tons even in several chunks. The next thing I do is stop and make a piercing and cutting spell, so I can start making the stuff actually fit. Transfiguration would be too magically consuming to do something on scales like this.

This takes me a good five weeks to get it down to any semblance of control. In that time, I did some more jobs for Ruby and John for spending money. The spells are so much more exhausting than my levitation, but I have a method of attack now, so... yay.

I finish shaping the foundation with the cutting spells on the concrete which had to be done at night for obvious reasons. With my level of skill with the charm, it took over three hundred spells until I finished the slabs to the right size. Nearly passed out many times over the course of the time it took which was a few nights.

Compared to the amount of work that took, the rest only took a week to do as I focused all my time into it. At night, I would touch up the metals and wooden beams to be in peak condition. I even add a fireplace coupled with a chimney using the bricks I found or made from the surrounding trash around Primm. Let's just say there are some new holes in the pavement down the road.

Now, I need a bed so I'm not sleeping on concrete all the time. I head inside to see Ruby once everything is done. "Ah, Fox! Here for another package?" I shake my head. "Ah, well. The house seems great! I have no idea how you've made it look so nice?!"

Snickering, I tell her the reason I am here, "I need a leave to go hunt some animals. You know any that have fur on them besides the radrabbits?"

Ruby gives me a quizzical look, "What's a radrabbit?"

"Two-headed bunny," I say with a barking laugh. They look so cute, but the heads freak me out.

"Oh... No we don't have those around these parts. I think the only thing with fur are those dogs running loose. Why?"

"Need a bed." Ruby nods at this. "I'll be back sometime next week if all goes well. Take care," I tell her with a wave of my hand with my good-bye.

"Take care and don't get yourself killed, you're the best courier we have!" My laughter is the last thing she heard as I left the room. I'm the only courier that is always available. Ulysses is a freak that hangs out too much in that divide to be of any us. The fact that _I, _the science abomination, am calling him a freak compared to ghouls, who I find are quite a nice people if they have their minds, is something.

Getting my bike from my little garage, I ride it out of town after overpowering a locking charm on my doors. I left some of my food and supplies in the house and I don't want any thieves to think that they can just walk in and take it.

I start north and every time I see a dog, I killed it. By the time I reach Vegas, I've picked up quite a few skins of varying qualities that I hope I can fix with magic. I'm not too sure I can with them being part of something once living, but it should be like wood right? That was once alive and I can make it strong and sturdy from weak and brittle, so I, in theory, should be able to boost the quality of the fur.

The box in my bike comes in great use for this job and well... Most courier works I do on this bike is made easy with the attachment. Carting these furs around would have been torture if I just had to use my bags.

As I make my way back, with some luck, I found a coyote pack that I gun down. This gives me enough to make a bed and a rug to go along with it! No cold feet in the morning for me! I head back to my house with a spring in my step along with a bounce in my driving and unpack my stuff. I read that I had to cure the fur first, which will take a while, so I get on it. The salt was a bitch to find even though I am in a desert, so was the area to do all the curing.

I end up converting my house for quite a number of weeks to finish up curing the leather to the best of my abilities. It may not be the most beautiful thing, but the carpet and bed won't fall apart in only a few days of having it.

After my house is set back up, I now have a carpeted living area made out of the family of canines I killed with a stack of fur sewn together acting as a bed for me with half my house being converted to a garage where I keep the tools for my bike on the wall with the bike in question in the middle.

To make it easy to get the bike out of the house, I make a large door, about half my back wall, to let me push my bike out of the garage bit. Once all was said and done, I locked my doors with a padlock and went to see Ruby for another job to earn enough money to eat for the day.


	3. 3 - The Doctor's Beginning

**Yo! I'm back and let me say, thank christ I have this on backlog as I have not written shit this week. Plus I believe I have a concussion, so I may not write up to my fullest potential for a few days. Anyways, by chapter... 8? I think I'll be switching this to past tense, as I wrote this before my lesson in writing from my brother. Have a good day people and I hope you enjoy!**

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><p>Chapter 3 - The Doctor's Beginning<p>

My life steadies out once I have a new house and neighbors. My job took me all over the west and mid-west, delivering packages, mail, weapons and some odd things like bandit clothing to the rich and the strangest thing I had to deliver was this one time I delivered gimp wear. That was a different experience to have when I try to get them to sign the paperwork. Surprisingly, I could tolerate their presence so much more easily than I can with Nipton. From the little I talked to them, they seemed like really nice people.

Ruby keeps me busy and I slowly learn how to be a handy man as well as the town's doctor for a side gig when no one needs packages delivered. All around, I'm never too hard up for caps since I don't really buy anything, but food.

Thanks to my medical knowledge, I help the sick and/or injured soldiers and citizens when they need it. Sometimes a stimpack is just not good enough to fix up someone. For a while now after seeing how grateful the soldiers are for the fixes, it has been my dream to become one of these Followers of the Apocalypse like in the books, but no one will tell me anything on them, so a town doctor is all I can be at the moment until I find them.

On my third year of the waste, I find myself sipping on a beer in the middle of the casino with Ruby chatting my ear off. "You really need to do something with that hair dear! It is still at your derriere!" It is strange that my hair doesn't really grow anymore after I wanted it to stop, but I put it down to magic.

I laugh at her nagging cheerfully. Ruby has been going on about my hair for most of the time I've been here. "But then I wouldn't have this majestic mane anymore!" I accompany my argument with hugging my hair close to my body. It truly is a mane as the length really didn't defeat the Potter's curse. The whole thing is more of a controlled mess at this point like it always has been, which is why I wrap it most of the time. Well for that reason and to keep it out of my way.

Ruby gives a chuckle as John joins us. "Hey Foxy. I got a package for Mr. House! You free?" I nod a confirmation. John hands me a contract with a poker chip. I am surprised to see the contract coupled with a poker chip as only high-value packages make me sign contracts. It is mostly to make sure I don't steal the wares and if I do, I have to reimburse them or die.

"For a poker chip?" I ask sceptically with an eyebrow raised at the man. John shakes his head with a shrug. I take the contract and sign my alias's name. "Alright. I'll take a bit though. I'm starting to get slower in my hunting, so I'll go by foot. Be back whenever." I sometimes take jobs by foot because if I don't, my leg strength goes down and running after a fleeing gecko is really hard if you are too slow. Not that I am too slow to do it, just that sometimes an all out sprint for ten minutes wears on a person if they haven't done it in a while.

I head back to my house to pick up some gear for the sixteen mile journey, making sure to bring my courier pass to get me into the strip. Last time I forgot the blasted thing, I had to come back to my house and then go all the way back to deliver the package to Vegas which pissed me off to no end.

I lock up my house using a heavily overpowered locking spell on every opening I can. My vision tunnels on the last one, but theoretically, it is good to go for half a year by the power behind the spell. I really do not want people getting to my bike in case I get side tracked for a while. I had that happen once where I had to go to Texas for a bit and it took three months to get back even on a bike. Lucky no one took anything from my house.

I leave the town with a farewell to the soldier that is on guard at the moment. They all like me as I fix up their wounded when I can as well as make herbal remedies for diseases and infections they get when they go have fun in Nipton.

As I walk, I chart my path to Vegas. I guess I'll make a stop at Goodsprings to say hello to Sunny, grab a bite of warm food, then follow the back roads to Vegas. Those roads cuts the journey down by a good fifty miles even if it is a little more dangerous. It really shouldn't be a probably if my Service rifle stays in good condition.

My plan set, I walk off into the desert. By midday the next day, I can see Goodspring in the distance, having not been delayed at all by the wild life. The things don't really bother me that much anymore. Man, I'm making some good time! Haven't made this time since I ran full-tilt after a fleeing gecko for half a day!

A burst of pain explodes across my body as something slams into my armor-covered rear deltoids and I'm thrown to the dirt, my lungs empty from the heavy impact. I vaguely hear the crack of a rifle as I hit the ground from the impact. 'That's a bullet!' Coughing in pain, I roll onto my back in time to see a boot slamming into my face.

"Boss, this doesn't feel right," a man says next to me. I find that I am on my knees being held up by someone, my hands bound by rope with a bag on my head. By the feel of their hands, they are a male, probably hired muscle. "Can't you just take the chip?"

The bag that rested over my head is tore off. Along with it goes my bandana, my hat being lost somewhere I guess. My ears pop up for all to see as I glare at the people in front of me. "What do you want?" I growl at them. In front of me is a gaping man in a checkered suit. "Yeah, I am part Fox, get over it! There are giant ass scorpions running around in mass eating two-headed cattle! Now, why did you fucking shoot me?!"

My voice seems to snap them out of their little dazed state. "You had something that I wanted, so I took it from you baby." He holds up the poker chip. The metal chip seems to shine in the morning light as the man examines it in front of me.

I blink owlishly at him. "You shot me... for a poker chip. That is by far the DUMBEST thing I've ever heard someone get shot over and I saw an entire gang kill themselves in a gunfight after I shot one of them! **I've **killed people for more and one of them was because he stole a cooked bunny ear from me!" I was in a bad mood that day and the drug addict just walked into my camp and took part of my dinner from my hands.

I silently cast a cutting charm on the rope as I rant, having them fall around me. "Now." I take a deep breath to calm my voice, "Let me go and no one has to die." This sets the gang off laughing. I notice they are part of the Great Khans. Pieces of scum. When they see the look on my face, their laughter peters out into nothing. "Are you surrendering or do I really have to kill you all?"

The checkered suit man gives another laughs and in a smooth motion, draws his side arm. I lash out right as it comes to my head, but the gun goes off right as I smack the barrel while moving my head away from where the thing was pointing. I take a grazing blow across my face and in a daze, I find myself falling into some hole they put me in front of.

They leave as I lie still on the ground. I just got shot in the head, so I'm not tempting fate to take another to the back. "Benny, you didn't have to shoot him man!" One of the Khans said to "Benny." I've been shot before, but that was in battle and on my arms and legs. This is my head and I am still alive. My luck is going to run out one day, but apparently not today.

Once I am sure they all are gone, I reach into my satchel as they for some reason left me with everything, but my weapons and pull out one of my stimpacks. I only have a few on me, leaving the majority I've saved up back with Ruby.

I check my medical mirror to see if the bullet is in my head, but it was only a glancing blow, not even cutting my hair. It bisected my faded lightning scar, the trail being from my left eyebrow to just before the hairline above my right eye. I prick myself in the wound with the stimpack and push the plunger down to release the chemical into my blood.

The healing agent makes me a bit woozy with how close the drug was injected to my brain, but I manage to crawl out of the would-be grave with only a little problem. The men had dug the hole in dirt which helped along the climb because I would probably bury myself if it was sand. I find my weapons discarded on the side of the hole, so I strap them on my back along with my bandana and stumble my way to Goodsprings. That stimpack may help, but I need a doctor to stitch me up and some bed rest. I hop Trudy has an open room.

I find my way to the town by late morning and knock on the doctor's door. The old man opens it and his eyes widen when he sees me standing there with blood coating my face and shirt. "Hey doc, I need a little assistance patching myself up." The man ushers me in with haste and I go to sit on the medical bed.

He looks the cut over, carefully probing it with his clean hands, well as clean as they can be in this world. "This... looks like a bullet wound," the man observes as he moves my head every which way to get the different views of the wound.

"Yeah. Some checkered suit wearing asshole mugged me for my package and tried to execute me. Luckily I made him miss and he didn't check to see if I was dead." The man tsks as he begins to stitch the wound shut. I barely wince as the needle made its way through my skin.

Once he is done, I lie down a dozen bottle caps on the table for his services. "Thanks doc. I'll grab a room at the bar for tonight, then I have to go hunt down this Benny guy."

"Benny? Checkered suit... You're going after one of the chairmen of New Vegas!" Doc cries out to me. Lucky day, lucky day. I have a name and location. I continue my way out with the doctor trying to talk me out of the hit, but I only half-listen to his words and head over to the bar, pricking my skull with one more stimpack to finish the healing. The stitching will make it heal straight and tight. By the time I'm into the bar, the wound is nothing but a fresh scar that I'll need to keep safe unless it opens. The skin is fine, but the layers under are still damaged.

I take a seat next to Sunny at the bar and order a beer. Trudy turns, serving the beer and gives a startled cry when she sees me sitting on the stool. "Jesus child! Are you alright?!" This causes Sunny to look and she too let out a cry. Oh right, my shirt and face.

"I'm fine guys. I just got on the wrong side of a gun. It's just a glancing hit and you know how head wounds are," I reassure them as I sip on my beverage. Stimpacks are surprisingly not effected by adding alcohol into the mix. Though their reactions are justified. I didn't clean the blood from my face and Doc didn't need to for stitching me up. "I'll be needing a room by the way." I set down the required money and Trudy hesitantly takes it. The bar has a few backrooms that Trudy had turned into rooms for travelers to bring in some more money.

Sunny taps me on the arm. I turn to look at the cowgirl to see a worried look on her face. I met her when I first came down this way and needed a good drink. I ended up having a drinking contest with her where I drank her under the table after I had out drunk the old explosives expert down the road. Alcohol just doesn't affect me unless I guzzle the stuff. After that, I come by every now and again to share a drink with her and chat. Sunny may be one of the few people is this hell that I consider a good friend. "So, do you know who shot you?"

I nod into my drink. "Benny. The chairman of New Vegas. He must be doing something against Mr. House as the package was meant for him. How's things around these parts?"

"Wow you don't do anything halfway do you?" I shake my head no as I finish my drink. I'm Harry Potter. If something world-changing is NOT my enemy, something is wrong. "It's been alright here except for those Powder gang thugs. We took in a guy, Ringo, from a caravan they hit and now they are threatening the town if we don't hand him over. We apparently have until sunset to hand him over. Look, there's one now. What the hell is he here for now?"

I look over and surely, there is one of the powder gang members. They seem rather proud that they were in prison with the whole, wearing their old uniforms as a gang trait. When he goes to talk, by the look on his face, threaten Trudy, I step in front of him. "Leave," I tell him calmly.

The man sneers into my face. "Fuck off, I have no business with you!" I do not move. I see Trudy backing away and reach under her counter. The woman keeps a double-barrel at the ready in case of bar fights.

I tell him once more, "Leave. You are disturbing this good woman's business." I make no threats, I just command him to leave. The man snarls at me like a dog and draws his pistol, pressing it against my head, right under of the bullet wound. I do not even flinch as he does this. The man won't do anything if he's smart. "You do understand the consequences if you follow through with this right? I've already been shot in the head once today, what makes you think I will die from your bullet?" Trudy taps her shotgun's butt against the counter when I say this.

"Yeah, you'd be a dead motherfucker!" He says smugly, even when he glances over to see the shotgun pointed at us. The man didn't even acknowledge Trudy as a threat. Sighing, I bring my arm up and knock the pistol up with a punch to the wrist. A round discharges into the roof as I use my other arm to draw my blade. Before the man can bring his gun back down, I have my knife buried in his neck all the way to the hilt. I can only do something like this due to my year of courier work as well as being a part-time mercenary on the side for some clients. Couriers are prime targets in the wasteland that was called America.

The man drops his gun, right into my waiting hand. I flip it around and as the man begins to fall, I tear the knife out of his throat before putting a bullet between his eyes with his own pistol. The ringing of the gunshot following the sharp ping of the empty casing hitting the ground is the only thing heard in the saloon. "Moron," I mutter as I unload the 10mm and toss it down next to the dead body. The bullets are mine by right and I can use them for munition crafting, but that handgun is a piece of shit.

Sunny comes up next to me and stares down at the dead guy. "That was awesome, but I think we will have to fight them now. Not that I didn't want to before."

I grab the man under his arms and begin dragging it out back. "Sunset is in two hours. Grab your guns and grab anyone willing to fight. I'll help you guys in this conflict."

Sunny leaves to do as I say as I bring the dead out back to be eaten by the critters of the waste. I head back in and lay down twenty caps on the bar. "For the mess," I tell her. The woman nods and pockets the money before grabbing a mop. A dead man in a bar is not an uncommon thing, especially in this town due to how nice everything is. Joy seems to bring in the worst lots.

I go over to Chet's to buy up some explosives for the fun. I know from my previous exchanges that the man is a greedy bastard, but a fair bastard when you get down to it. No matter what, he will turn a profit, but he will not cheat you out of caps if you're not a dumbass.

He has four mines in stock for twenty caps each at the time I enter the store. All four being of the basic fragmentation variety. "I'm protecting this town from moronic thugs hell bent on someone you guys are not giving up. Mind a discount on these things so I can lighten the assault?" I ask as I place the mines on the counter.

Chet looks me over and nods. "Fifteen a mine. Make sure they don't hit my shop and I might give you a discount next time you stop by." I return his nod and hand over the money which is a great price for even these things. I leave and set the explosives up close enough to set each other off. Two on the sides and one further up to hit more people with the two sides. The sides will detonate with the one of the road due to how utterly unstable these things are. Post-war explosives can't be trusted even when they are supposedly unarmed. I then take my position next to the sign and cloak myself with magic.

I see Sunny run out with a man, I assume he is Ringo. They both are armed with mediocre weapons. Sunny with her vermin rifle and Ringo with a 9mm pistol. I have my own pistol out and ready. The pair runs around the town a bit, but no one risks themselves in the fight and the two take their positions for the fight to come. The two chose to hide behind some crates for cover and then we wait.

In an hour of waiting, the men show up from over the hill, a swagger in their step. Their very being screams of arrogance, so much that I want to destroy them with every fiber of my being. Oh how they remind me of purebloods back home. There seems to be twenty of them, more than I thought, but not too much of a problem as they look untrained and under-armed. My gun holds fifteen rounds and with my bombs, this should be a quick fight.

They don't even look at the ground they walk on and stepped right on my mines. For a bunch of people who regularly mine roads to kill innocent people, I am surprised they didn't find my amateurishly hidden ones. I planned to shoot them if they saw one, but it looks like I can save a bullet. The mines go off in one big burst of shrapnel and the resulting explosion kills five of the men as well as maiming three others. The rest start to panic which got worse when Sunny and Ringo opens fire on them. They kill the three maimed before the gang started to fight back.

I slowly emerge from my hiding spot, my magical cloak slipping off as it is no longer needed. I raise my pistol just as I hear a crack from the mass of murderers and a cry. A feminine cry. I see Sunny fall behind the crates and Ringo ducking to check on her. The one that shot her let out a cruel laugh as he pulled the bolt on his rifle back. The gang just shot Sunny. They shot one of my few friends and they laughed. 'KILL THEM! Make them HURT!' I hear a voice scream in my head. Oh I want to.

The world seems to slow around me as I discharge one of my 9mm rounds into the back of one of the thugs' head. I begin to walk slowly to them as I aim with both my hands and fire, each shot killing a man. My world still going at a snail's pace as I adjust and fire. My body is slower than normal, but so much faster than these maggots' speed.

Ever bullet makes my blood boil even hotter. I'm letting them off too easy! They need to _suffer _for what they did! I tear my knife out of the holster and throw it at one of the two remaining men. The other is the one that shot Sunny. The knife took him at the throat, making him suffocate or drowned, which ever happens first, as I reload.

I slam a fresh clip in just as the man turns slowly. Oh how he is turning so slowly. I raise my weapon and squeeze the trigger. The gun barks as the man fell onto his knee, one of his knees gone in a burst of gore and bone fragments. My world speeds up as the man lets out a cry of pain as he fell. The next bark took out his left shoulder. Boom. Right shoulder. Boom. His remaining knee. Only now does he start crying for mercy through his wails of pain.

There will be no mercy for the bastard. The gun jumps in my hand and the man falls on his back, his stomach bleeding like a fountain. All he does is scream his head off in agony, begging me to end it. I put a bullet into each of his hands. It won't do if he finishes the job himself. He hurt my pack and my payment will be his slow death.

This made the man who harmed Sunny only scream louder. Good. I holster my pistol and walk away from the man as he cried and begs for me to end the pain. To put a bullet into his head. I never broke my stride or even thought of turning around.

I make it to the crates and I see Sunny against them, holding her shoulder with a grimace while biting her lower lip. I crouch next to her and pry her hand off the wound. Through and through with only a little muscle damage. The woman will be able to shoot again, but will have to take it easy for a few weeks. I apply two stimpacks to it to speed along the healing. The medicine is a pain to find and I can't even make it, but giving it to a wounded friend to ease their pain is something I will always do in a heartbeat. The woman sighs with relief as the drug takes its effect. It has a slight numbing agent in it so people don't feel the skin shifting around or bones coming back together.

I help the woman stand up and she finally takes notice to the screaming. She looks over at the slowly dying man and back to me. It looks like she wants to say something, but doesn't. We head inside where the pair go grab a drink and I go to the room I rented to sleep off the day.

The next morning, I get up and leave the town without saying a farewell. I need to be on my way after all and waiting for people to get up will only set me back further than I already am. As I make my way down the road towards Vegas, I ignore the rotting bodies in the street. Well until a thought came to mind. How did I slow time down for myself? Thinking back to the feeling, I try to replicate it until my world slows after I push magic into the equation. Boy it became a lot of magic too!

I made this work by channeling magic into my brain and eyes in general, which turned into channeling magic through my nervous system to increase my reaction time to match my new perception. I do have to cut it due to being too magically intensive to keep up. I had an unholy amount of rage to increase the potency of my magic when I first did it, but now that it is just me, it takes only five seconds of real-time to have to quit. It was twenty-second to me though. The time difference seems to be a factor of four which is all I really need if things go down.

In that time, my magic reserves which are already high, was diminished to a third of what it was. I guess I can train up my new sight and reserves now as I walk. It only takes five days to travel from Goodsprings to Vegas. Another day to circle around it on foot to get to an entrance , as the rest were blocked by giant overturned buses and rubble because god forbid people open the major trading hub up more for travelers.

The only thing I run into on the way to the city of lights are a few swarms of Cazadors. This would have horrified me, but with my new focus, I would pop in and out of it, sending rifle rounds into their wings, crippling them. It is only a matter of finishing them off after that. They are harmless if they can't even turn themselves over and their wings are easier to cut than skin. "_If you ever find yourself needing to fight a Cazador with no way to escape. You must shoot their wings off if you can or have an automatic weapon as the creature's erratic movement and vicious nature makes it almost as dangerous as a Deathclaw if there is more than three. If the option is there, run. If not, eat a bullet._"

I check my Zoology book on the creatures to make sure I do this right and harvest their two poison glands. Finding that three of them were pregnant, so I take at least five small eggs with me. The creatures may be one of the deadliest things in the desert, but their eggs can make a mean omelet, so there is money in most of the parts. Not that I sell anything as everything has its uses. The eggs are so going to be my breakfast for a few days.

I harvest anything of use along the way, be it from prickly pears or the occasional Xander roots. They can be used in some remedies, especially the root as it is good for the more severe infections the men get with their fun. People are lucky that HIV died with the old world because a little root or fruit is not fixing that shit.

It isn't long until I reach Freeside. I push open the gates and pass the fort to my left in a hurry. That place must be a drug house for how many junkies I see going in and out of it. I make sure to keep my distance from the building.

Due to my appearance as a mercenary, I make it through the town unmolested up to the gates to the strip. The thugs know better than to attack mercenaries in these parts. The greeter, an old man. Tan fellow in a white pin-stripe suit standing in front of the corridor of robots. He makes sure no one sneaks into the strip without being seen and to make sure the bots don't gun anyone down that doesn't deserve it. "Hello courier." I nod back at him as I pass.

I am always nervous when I walk into the corridor of robots that line the gate. I always think one will malfunction and gun me down for no reason. The gate guard rolls up to me on its one tire. It seems to look me over as I hand over my courier pass. "We are sorry sir. You're courier card has expired; ten days, two hours and thirty-three minutes ago. Please present two thousand bottle caps to gain a pass or present a different pass."

I curse loudly to myself as I leave the corridor. I can't believe my card was so out of date! Why didn't I renew it when I was still at the casino. I thought about it too, but I told myself I had a good week on the thing left. Why didn't I check?! I had days, DAYS to check it out!

As I pass Old Ben, he calls out to me, "Are you alright Courier?" An idea strikes me when I hear Ben. This guy has been everything from an escort to a hired hitman, he must know something I can do!

I twist on my toes and walk back to the man. "Nah, card expired and I really do not want to head all the way back to Primm. The roads are far too dangerous to get there under ten days and I've already been shot in the head once for this trip." It was only luck that it took seven to get here, though I do not have a time limit, I do need my revenge. "Any safe...ish jobs around here for a budding doctor and mercenary?"

"Try the Followers in that Old Mormon Fort by the north gate. They are always on the look out for potential help that aren't in it just for drugs. You look clean... in both manners. How do you bath so much? I've always meant to ask when you come deliver packages, but you looked hurried."

The question makes me chuckle. "I have a strange resistance to rads. I just don't get sick from them, so I can easily bath in the cleaner waters of the waste or just use bottled water I heat up. Thanks for the help Ben. See you later." It is true that I am resistant to rads, so it was more of a half-truth, half-lie. It must be due to my radiation induced mutation.

"Bye courier. I wish you luck." I tip my imaginary hat to the kind man and give him a smile before leaving, tossing the man a clean bottle of water as a tip for the help on an after thought. My long wrap of hair swinging behind me in the breeze as I quickly walk to the north gate. There is a little skip in my step as I finally found out where the followers are! I thought they were far south like around Barstow or something! I always wanted to join them after studying Hannes' research as well as Keyes' notes. Who knew that the drug house was really a hospital? Well... Probably a lot of people to be honest.

I enter the couple of century old fort to see medical tents lining the walls with a line outside each, people waiting for treatment or something to help their withdrawal if the incessant twitching is anything to go by. I notice an older man messing around with crates, moving them to tents with doctors in them.

Seeing as he is free for conversation, I head over to him. When he sees me walking over, he puts the box down with an annoyed expression on his face. "You have to wait in line like everyone else sir," the man calls over to me.

I wave my hand dismissively at the man, "I'm not here for drugs or whatever these people come for. I wish to apply for a job here to earn some caps while helping people."

The man looks at me sceptically. His guard doesn't relax a bit. This man is a fighter, or someone who has been attacked way too many times. "Do you even know anything about medicine?" I pull out three of my medical books I carry around with me always, keeping the books safe as well as my own. I started my own journal or handbook by adding all the details I would need to know on the fly as well as all the recipes from the books combined in the back, so I don't have to root around for them.

I hand the trio over to the doctor to look at. "I memorized all of those books and more. I had three years to study them and I am also the resident doctor in Primm. Them boys get up to all kinds of mischief in Nipton at night that they need fixing." I tell the man as he looks over the book cover before almost dropping it.

"Are these research books written by THE Hannes?!" The man almost shouts in my face. "Hannes, the greatest doctor we ever had, wrote these?! Where did you find them?!" The glee in his eyes could probably be seen across the camp.

I chuckle as I scratch my arm, "I woke up in a building three years ago. It was apparently his research lab and I found a guy dead with those in his satchel." I pat my satchel. "Guy name was Keyes and he sounded CRAZY going off his journal. The man stole the research and set off some traps, getting crushed and destroying the lab."

The man is practically salivating when he hears this. "Keyes was always a crazy bastard, but he was a damn good doctor as well! You're saying you memorized everything on Hannes' research that you have?!" I nod. "You're in! I'll teach you myself if I have to if you give me a copy of the books you got from the man! My name is Arcade Gannon, I am one of the head doctors here in the fort!" The man hands me back my books before shaking my hand vigorously. "When can you start?"

I can only blink at the excited man. "Today...?" The man looks like he wants to squeal as he grabs my hand and drags me over to the line of people in one of the tents. Arcade stands on his tiptoes as he looks the people over until he spots one out of the sea of bodies.

The man he grabs looks to have a twelve-inch gash over his arm and is holding his head with his good hand. He is one of the Kings if his outfit is anything to go by along with the distinctive hair style. The man then drags us both into the tent and all but pushed the poor guy onto one of the available beds. "Fix him up to show me what my new apprentice can do."

I chuckle at the brute way the man works and how excited the man is at the moment. I look down at the confused man on the bed. "Hello sir. Sorry about my… master's behavior. It would seem I am your doctor for today. What seems to be the problem, beside the gash on your arm?"

The man tells me in a pained grunt, "Got mugged by those thugs in the west side! They hit me in the head with a pipe I think and stabbed me!" Hearing the part about the head, I bring out a small flashlight I scavenged at some point in my time here, it runs off kinetic energy, so I give it a few shakes before clicking it on. I shine the light in both eyes, but he doesn't seem to have a concussion.

Seeing as there is no head wound to worry about, I check out the knife wound. The man had the thought to tie the wound in a bandage before coming here. I slowly peel up the sticky cloth that covers half the wounded area and see the injury. It's not too big, but it is very dirty and has some flakes of rust in it. There will be infection if I don't clean it out thoroughly.

I take out one of my many bottles of clean water and a clean cloth. I wipe the wound clean as gently as possible to clean out all the grim and foreign materials. The man does well not to flinch and only expresses his pain in a low groan. Once the wound is clean, I grab some needle and thread from the table next to me.

I thread the needle using my focus, quickly tiring me, but I get it on the first try so I drop the intensive technique in only seconds within my slow world. "Bare with me sir, this will hurt a bit, but afterwards, you're set to go." I stitch his wound close, keeping the sutures tight and even, a surprisingly hard task, but the soldiers get hurt a lot in their weekly training, so I have a little experience in closing wounds. When the gash is sewn up, I cover it in a clean cloth and wrap it in the gauze on the tray. "There you are sir," I tell him with my doctor smile I've perfected over the months I was the doctor for Primm. It is entirely false, but the people have trouble seeing that. It is more of a neutral gentle smile than anything.

The man thanks me with a pat on the shoulder using his good arm as he leaves. My vision blacks out as something white covers my head that smells of disinfectant. I tear it off to see it is a clean lab coat just like the followers have.

I turn to see Arcade almost in tears, "You…" The man sniffs with tears in the corner of his eyes. "You did great my apprentice! You even have the smile down! I- I will teach you everything I know using these fools as dummies for the pursuit of knowledge!" The fire in his eyes make me second guess my choice for a second. "The pay will be five a day for a month and fifteen afterwards if you stick around. You better stick around," the man tells me seriously as he grabs me by my shoulders, making me look the intense man in the eyes. "The last apprentice I had was a fool and a braggart! I can't go through that again!" I manage grin at the intense man and slide on the coat once he releases me. It is a light material that I will be customizing for quicker access to my medical tools than the two big pockets.

Arcade drags me off to give me hands on lessons before I can even begin to think. Even if I'm being dragged around by the man, I can see this is going to be quite fun.


	4. 4 - Frantic Greed

**Here we go!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 4 - Frantic Greed<p>

I stay in the fort for two months before I have to leave and kill Benny for my chip. It'll probably be on his person or in his suite, so I better check both in case of replicas. It only took this long to make the money because I kept donating the stuff into the fort treasury for more supplies. Most of the doctors do the exact same thing even if it is just so they don't have to deal with withdrawn junkies bothering them.

The FIRST thing Arcade taught me, along with the help of one called, 'Bill' was how to make a Fixer from the plant life. Thankfully there is no radioactive materials involved like trying to make radaway or rad-X, so it was easy for me to learn the method that was left out of my books. I guess the book on prescription and addiction was destroyed in the collapse.

I do some work for the kings on the side to make a little more spending money too to quicken the pace I can get into the strip. Once I get the pass, I never have to rely on my courier pass again. It's kind of like the membership card of a country club that you don't have to renew.

I even got a new nickname for my time in the fort, nothing with hyphens in it this time! Due to me picking up the habit of humming and singing little songs I learned over my years to drown out the sound of patients in pain, I am now called the Singing Doctor by the residents of New Vegas. I am apparently good enough for people to come just to watch me work so they can hear me sing, which is rather strange as I only copy things from the radio for the most part.

I, personally, don't really hear it, but whatever entertains people I guess or they're just making fun of me without letting me know. That too could be a strong possibility and I'll just have to wait for Arcade... No, Julie to tell me that it's bad. Arcade would use me for his own amusement. I even get round of applause which seems to always startle me, no matter if I acknowledge the people beforehand or not. It generally pisses me off every time because I keep dropping my shit!

I followed through with my coat modifications and I now have more flared out sleeves with pockets in them to hold scalpels and other necessary equipment. I added a hood to the coat as well in case I am caught without my bandana, I have a back up. After losing my hat, I never really took the initiative to get another, so the hood will do. I am so thankful that my ears can flatten back or the hood would help with nothing if I don't have a bandana on. Though I would like to air everything out more often than when I go to sleep at night. Work the kinks out of the ears and tail so to speak. Especially my tail. That bastard limb gets extremely stiff after spending all day on my leg. I've been questioned about the slight bulge along my leg by Arcade, but my excuse is that I have holsters for my weapons that I tie to my leg just encase I need to sneak something around. My coat modification helped the camp believe that lie.

I love working with the people around the camp and helping them fix people up, it's not a chore to me anymore. Arcade has taught me so many tricks to the craft that I even start a second journal to document them so I never forget. I am also the food provider thanks to my hunting, so I get even more caps for cooking food on the side. I need to get my hunting in even if the only way I stay in top shape is exercising around the fort in the morning and more in the evenings. Not that it isn't a good way to stay in shape as Arcade has also taken me as his fighting apprentice along with the nurse role and that man can hit HARD!

I think I might just quit my courier job and take this up full-time after the whole Benny debacle. I've been barely shot at here too! Sure we have the bi-weekly attempts at sieges, but with Arcade and I here, we shoot all the invaders in non-lethal spots then drag them in to fix up and send on their way. We split the loot from their pockets evenly between ourselves and anyone who joins in the fight, but not many do. The doctors mostly just take bets on how fast we take them down even though they disapprove of our actions. Arcade had been one of the camp's major defending unit for the longest time before they had money for guards, so the man was a crack shot at this point. Arcade explained to me after I asked why the others didn't join in was due to them being, "Pansy Oath-Keepers."

I leave my weapons behind, but keep a piece of scrap metal in my sleeve I can transfigure into anything I would need. I, of course, bring along my medical bag, which I finally got a separate one for all my supplies and my book satchel. The medical bag is a small first aid bag that I keep strapped all across my left outer thigh at all times with any medicine or other things I may need in it. I even sewed on a Follower of the Apocalypse symbol on the side.

I enter the stripe with a pass now in my satchel, which I will soon sew into the very fabric of the container, so I never forget the fucker. My first stop is to the Tops. The place Benny works in. I walk into the hotel and show the man I have no weapons on me other than my scalpel, but he doesn't see that one in my sleeve nor do I point it out. His fault for not seeing the tool.

The man searching me introduces himself as Swank before I can get into the casino, "I would like to thank you. Without your help, I would be missing a few of my more loyal guards." I nod at him with my doctor smile in place. I get guards sometimes coming in with gunshot or knife wounds when the crowd gets a little too rowdy. People find ways to bring in weapons here even with these inspections, such as me with my blade. I have magic on my side, so it really doesn't matter in my case though. I can make a shot glass into a temporary small-caliber handgun and just sneak in a bullet if I had the inclination.

We chat a bit about how the casino is doing before I head to the bar to get a drink. I haven't had any good alcohol since we celebrated a hard siege and Arcade found some good whiskey off their leader. I order some of their whiskey from the bar tender. It cost me five caps for a shot, so it better be worth it.

I nurse the drink as I look around the floor for Benny. I hear he likes to mingle with the ladies on the floor to see if he can score some that isn't disease ridden. I easily spot the distinctly dressed man chatting up some woman from across the casino floor. He is accompanied by his four body guards who are watching the woman carefully, their hands constantly on their sidearms just encase the woman tries something.

I have to smirk into my shot glass. With a wordless flick of my hand and a bit of power that I know have in spades due to my constant use of my focus to the point I only use the necessary amount. I transfigure my metal scrap into a wide and extremely sharp disk looking blade. More like a buzz saw blade I've seen around, but sharp enough to cut flesh as easily as a Nordic longsword.

When everyone is facing away from this drinking doctor, I withdraw the blade from my blood-stained sleeve and aim it at Benny from the palm of my hands. I banish the blade with as much magic I can muster and keep it invisible which is a feat in itself due to the high speed it was going at.

The blade flashes across the room and imbeds itself into Benny's throat about halfway down the blade. The woman screams shrilly as she faints to the ground and Benny's guards shout out their distress as they draw their weapons. Pointing at everything and nothing.

I am already moving when I see blood flying. I sprint into the casino floor and begin hopping around the tables over people's heads like the fox I am. My hair wrap and coat fluttering behind me as I roar for the mob to get out of my way. The tone of my voice plus my permanently blood-stained coat makes the people comply fast enough not to impede me when I get to the ground level after I run out of tables.

I slide on my knees to a stop next to the dying man. I deftly pull out gauze from my sleeve and begin to roll the bandages around the man's neck tight enough to slow the bleeding, but not choke the wounded guy. "You're going to okay mate! Hold on and I'll get you back up and flirting with the ladies in no time!" I tell him with a gentle smile as my hands blur around his head, wrapping the bandages without shifting his neck in the slightest.

The man looks hopefully up at my face until he notices my forehead and the hair framing my face. He recognizes me, but doesn't have the power to move. The chairman of Vegas gives a wet whimper at the sight of me though, but that can easily be heard as a whimper of pain and not of fear.

As I work, I send a cloak onto his holster for his custom pistol as well as summon his keys and chip. The gun is going to be my trophy and I need the chip if it is the real deal. The chip and keys flies into my sleeve where I put them in a small pocket within my coat sleeve I made yesterday for this as I slide my unused gauze back into the slot I made for it.

I pull out a half full needle full of diluted Med-X and a canister from my medical bag in a swift motion. I top off the injection with the yellowish liquid from the canister as Med-X is not enough for this job. Taking the now full needle, I give it a mighty shake before jabbing it into his arm and slowly push the plunger down. "That will make the pain go away sir. Now. Bodyguards! Get me a fucking stretcher, a table or something I can put him on! The casino floor is not the place to do neck surgery now is it?!" I roar behind me as I continue to apply pressure on his neck to slow the bleeding.

As the guards scramble away to do as the doctor saving their boss's life commands, I flash a grin at the dying man and summon his cloaked pistol into hand. Before the cloak can fully dissolve due to shifting it, I stuff the gun into my coat's pocket, clamping the flap shut with the button on it.

I mutter to the man as I lean in to get a better look at the damage through the bandages, "You shouldn't have shot me and took my package," I mutter for him to hear.

The man opens his mouth and I hear him whisper, "House… mus.t… d.i..e…" On the end of the last word, he exhales his final breath around the blade. I lunge forward in false surprise and felt his wrist for a pulse, then pressed my ear to his chest. Nothing.

I put on a distressed face as I started to give the man some CPR. "Nonononono," I repeat over and over again as I try to revive the man I murdered, but to no avail. I try for three minutes before I sit back on my heels and look down at the dead man's blank eyes. The bodyguards let out a cry as they look down at their deceased boss.

I wordlessly get to my feet and step to the side to let the men mourn. I say nothing to the men as I check around to see everyone is focused on Benny. I hug the wall and slowly leave as they start to move Benny's dead body. When it is on the stretcher table they brought over, I am already in the elevator to the penthouse floor.

I use the key to find the room number and I enter the room with the custom pistol in hand, covering my front. It has a motif of saint Maria, so I think I'll name her Maria. I move through the room to the safe. I give it a pull to find it is locked. Growling, I cast a powerful piercing charm onto the lock and it tears a hole into the safe, letting it lazily swing open.

I find a box of over three hundred bottle caps and a lot of ammo, but no chip. I leave the safe after taking the coin and go to the bedroom, only to stop when I see a giant hole in the wall. I walk through the hole to see a security bot with a smiley face on the monitor down the hall. The hall being what I can only guess to be a servant or service hallway.

It rolls over, but doesn't raise its weapons, instead speaking to me in a rather cheerful voice, "Hello intruder! My information tells me that Benny is dead! How may I assist you?"

Weirded out by the robot, I hesitantly ask, "Could you tell me what Benny wanted with the poker chip and where is it?"

"Oh that chip would be on Benny's person! It is the key to get to a super weapon that Mr. House is thought to be trying to get to. I am informed that it is the key to the bunker which is located under the fort the Legion are using as a base for this section of our great country! Benny wanted to use the chip to take the weapon and take over New Vegas!" Well then… That... Explains everything. Power grabs make a lot more sense than most things in the desert. Only seconded to the insanity of men.

"So Benny wanted to usurp Mr. house's control on Vegas with his own weapon." Hm. That would explain his last words. "Would I be able to take control of Vegas on my own?"

"Yes sir, intruder! First we must kill Mr. House! To get into his office, there is a keycode in the top floor of the H&H Tools factory within a Chief Hanion's office! Benny was going to go grab it a week ago, I only found it two weeks before today! Sadly he got sidetracked by women!" I think I'll grab the card just in case, but see what Mr. House's side of the story is before I go take over a city.

"Alright. I'll go grab the keycard and check on House. Why are you so helpful to someone you deem as an intruder?"

"It is my programming to be helpful to everyone! I say too much information is what Benny tells me, but it is just my programming!" That is a major flaw. But he continues talking, "Like how I am to be the go to whomever kills Mr. House to control Vegas. I just have to be uploaded to the Lucky 38 mainframe and you or anyone you deem fit to interact with me will control the city , you are now my new owner!" Wow, that programming was not thought through.

It continues talking, the robot not needing a break due to the lack of lungs. "The end goal is to control Hoover dam using our robot army, but we will need to figure out who is on our side, so I'll mark down on that paper map you have there where all the factions are!' He just takes my map from my bag, just reaches in, grabs it and marks it up with a marker. Giving me it back with a note. It has a list of factions and locations. The Brotherhood of Steel, Boomers, Great Khans, Omertas and White Glove Society. Well… If I go through with this, the Brotherhood and White Gloves are out. I have heard big rumors that the society eats people and the Brotherhood are too independent to be trusted to fight for any side.

"Um. Well the casinos are out as they will not be able to go against a might that can take the NCR and the society are rumored man-eaters. The Khans are nothing but a nomadic tribe that numbers are far too low to matter with an army of bots, plus they are Legion scum if I remember right, but the Boomers have potential that I might check out if I go through with this."

I leave the robot behind and sneak out of the casino. The next thing I do is head into the Lucky 38, taking the elevator to Mr. House's office. I come out to see security robot rolling around.. I make my way over to the main room and see Mr. House with his face plastered on the big screen. "Hello Courier. I've been expecting you for some time now! Do you have the chip?" I pull it out and show the screen. "Such a small thing isn't it? Yet it is so… valuable. So very dear…" House says as the screen looks at the chip in my hand. "Please follow my robot to get you your pay and to show you the importance of what you have brought me."

I wordlessly follow the robot to the elevators and they bring me to the basement. I step up to a platform to see a range set up. Over the next half an hour, Mr. House shows the might of his security force, but tells me something terrifying. "This is not even ten percent of their capabilities. I need the program under the legion's fort to unlock the capability. This is where you come in. I am willing to pay you a large sum of money as well as make your life full of luxury for as long as you live if you help me further."

The robot pulls out a sack of caps a hands it to me. I place it in my bags while thinking, I can exploit this. I'm killing House as during the demonstration, all he spoke of was how he shall be the ruler with more power. I am not ashamed to admit the lure of my own power draws me to the idea as well. I am only human after all, so I want to make the same power grab too! "I will help if you add in supporting the Followers of the Apocalypse. I'll go kill the Legion in the fort and bring back the program."

I hear House say almost startled over his robot mic, "Kill? You can always work your way up the ladder to gain their trust."

I sneer at the screen with House's face on it, "If you think I will lower myself to the level of slaver scum, you have another thing coming!" I really do not like the Legion. I've had no encounters with them, but I have seen their cruel work on innocents and that will never stand with me. I've picked up far too many pieces of their victims to ever work with them. The things they do to the women that are let go is horrifying to even me with my disconnect for human life.

House doesn't seem to care if I kill them though. "I will not send back up as I do not need the Legion to disrupt my carefully laid plans. It will all be on you and whatever poor merc you get to accompany you. Do not drop my name in any of this."

"Alright, makes sense. I do however need some equipment. I may like the guns I have now, but the level of noise they create would be unacceptable for something which is bound to happen in the dead of night. Would you be willing to fund my assault? Call it advance payment and deduct it out of my pay for getting your program."

House gives a hum until the screen head nods. A bot deposits two weapons in front of me. One is a standard sniper rifle I've seen in the gun runner's shack with a suppressor on the end and the other is a suppressed 9mm, but it looks like the type the yanks use back home in their police force, not of the 1911 model they have here.

"Do not lose that pistol Mr. Fox. It is one of the few old world model 9 pistols I was able to get my hands on. That tool is over two centuries old and counting. I only have four clips, so you will have to have more crafted. I repeat courier, do. Not. Lose. This. This is a gift of faith that I will get my program. Do not fail me." The screen blips off and I take the elevator back to the surface.

In the ride up, I fuse Maria's leather holster to my vest, changing the color of it to match. I slide the M9 into my old pistol's holster and the rifle over my shoulder. If I am going to take the fort, I will need to go get my bike in case I need a quick getaway. Plus I need to move my stuff to the Followers anyways.

I pick up my assault rifle from my tent in the Followers, one every doctor gets. It is much like the lieutenant's tent in Primm, but much more flimsy, so I have been working on an unbreakable charm to make it impossible to break in. At the moment, it tires me faster than running twenty miles in an hour to make it last a night. I am however getting better at it. Spells are not meant for enchanting stuff I have been finding out in my time here. If I ever make it back home, I so have to look into enchanting works.

I leave my hunting rifle in the care of Arcade to fight off siegers while I'm gone. His plasma pistol makes fixing his victims a huge pain in the ass. "I'll be gone for about a month or two hopefully. I am going to swing by to drop off some of my stuff, then go slaughter the Legion fort and gain some allies in a bomb happy faction. Cya master!" I tell him cheerfully as I walk away. I hear the man start to protest, but I am already outside the fort.

I leave Freeside, making a stop to buy ammo and a manual for my sniper rifle from the gun runner's booth then take off at a steady jog to the Cazador zone. I read this and reread it again until I understand the gun past point and fire. Using the manual and my experience in firearms, I zero in everything to a solid one hundred meters, so I don't miss because the bullet strays a bit to the right or up.

The rifle is used to great efficiency as it tears through the Cazadors like the bugs they were, not the insanely power monstrosities that gives grown soldiers bed wetting nightmares they are. I make sure to harvest all their eggs and poison. My old supply had ran out in my stay within Freeside. Those Cazador omelets drove the doctors crazy for more. Hell, if I didn't respect what they did and how they have helped me, I would have made so much money off selling the things to them.

I get to Primm in a record four days only to be stopped by one of the soldiers, a Philip I believe. "Halt! There has been a takeover of Primm by inmates from a nearby prison yesterday! Enter at your own risk." I stare at the _Armed _man blankly.

"They are prisoners Phil. Shoot them in the lung and they die like any normal man," I tell the man, exasperated by the stupidity of the military. The man looks a little ashamed but doesn't move. Orders and the like.

Sighing at the NCR soldier, I draw out my two new guns and walk into the town to clean it up. I am not left-handed, but with my focus, I should be able to shoot straight enough. I discovered that adrenaline messes with my focus and it makes regulating the magic far too hard, so I can only last three minutes in battle before I feel faint. That shouldn't matter too much as I do the focus in bursts if I need to fight with it.

I advance into the town and shoot the first two people I see with the M9. The gun produces nothing, but a little puff and the men fall with a bullet wound to the head. This one, unlike mine, was not a glancing hit. I do not break stride as I walk around the side of the casino and sight in two more men, this time with both to my weapons.

One puff and crack later, I am being swarmed by men with bats and knives. The fools. I bombard them with bullets until only I remain standing in a ring of bodies. I saw people come out of the casino, so I sprint at the door and shoulder bash through the already broken doors. What I see hallows my mind.

In the corner are all my co-workers or neighbors dead in a pile. The casino is trashed and there is small fires everywhere that will no doubt only grow now that the thugs are dead. I mindlessly reload my weapons as I leave through the open doorway, my dash inside taking the doors off their hinges. With my mind blank from what I saw in the casino, I kick open the hotel door that the guest sleep in for the night. I see a group of inmates, so I shoot them. More inmates flood into the room, so I shoot them too.

I walk through the hotel, floor by floor, mindlessly killing any person that moved. When I ran out of 9mm ammo, I pulled out my knife and got in close. My speed helping me get too close before they can shoot me. My coat and shirt are soon drenched in the blood of the… _trash_ that killed the people I have known for the past year.

They try to ambush me at every turn. They fail every time. Their breath, their shaking hands, their heartbeat, I hear it all and I stop it all. The old plaster does nothing to protect them from being tackled through the walls. The old wood doesn't stop my cutting charms from taking limbs off. Every kill I make, I watch their eyes as the life leaves them. Seeing the animals' confusion and terror as they die under my hands.

I stab the last man I see through the lung and he falls gasping with my knife still in his chest just as his ally came around the corner. I have no time to pull out my knife, so with a roar, I lunge forward and latch my teeth into his neck.

Growling like an animal, I clamp down on his neck, shaking my head viciously back and forth to rip the throat out. I spit out the flesh onto his bleeding body and go retrieve my knife. I pull my displaced bandana back on as I stalk out of the dead building to get my things. It had come off at some point, so I pocketed it. I pick up all my M9 clips along with some M1911 types as well from a few of the dead coupled with their ammo supplies.

There is not a sound left in the town as I walk through it. The massacre the prisoners reaped took out all the innocents and my animal extermination killed the rest of the living creatures. Seeing that the town is gone, I draw up all my emotions and let them out in a loud echoing roar. I abruptly cut the cry off and wipe the small tears that has formed out of my eyes so I can carry on with my business in town.

I check my house to see it is mostly fine with only graffiti on it. I see the spells on my locks are still active, so I disenchant the door and open it. I roll up my bed and tie it to my pack which I fill with my caps, tools for my bike and spare ammo. My nicknacks goes into my satchel if they are small enough. They are just a few things I've gotten in my travels. I open my garage and ride my bike out of the town back to Philip.

I slow to a stop next to the wide-eyed man. He must be shocked I'm still alive or the fact my upper body is covered with blood along with a jaw painted in the substance. "Town's dead. Tell the lieutenant he's a failure of a soldier." On these words, I gun the engine and make it to Vegas in a few hours before sunset. The Cazador try to chase, but they aren't fast enough to catch a bike tearing across the hills at a good 60 Miles per hour. My bike flies over the hills, but the suspension holds under the stress like it was made to. I only stop once to take a water break and to clean off the drying blood.

I ride straight into the fort after opening the gates to Freeside and up to my tent. I park my bike and throw my bed and supply pack into my tent without looking. I'll unload it later. I hop back on the bike as I see Arcade coming over hesitantly. "Hey. Are you okay?"

"No. Primm's dead. I need to go do something productive to calm down. Get my mind off it all. Bye," I stiltedly tell my master as I speed out of the fort and up to the Boomer's base. I speed by the first nice man I've met that hangs out there to bet with people and weave my way through the ruined town.

The town's remains were covered in craters, making my ride bumpy and dangerous, but I took it in strides and somehow in my blind travels, I manager to reach the gates to what looks to be an airfield before the second salvo of mortars hit the ground.

I whip the bike around to stop before the fence. Jumping off the bike, I quickly raise my hands over my head to show I am not hostile. "Greetings to the Boomers! I have an offer for you lot!" I call out, the anger and haste in my mind not showing in my voice thankfully. A man with a rocket launcher aimed at me comes down and I have to question with a befuddled expression on my face, "What are you going to do with that? Aren't you a tad bit too close?" I point at the launcher in question. This did more to calm me down then the mindless driving. Ah the stupidity of people.

"Shut up! Why are you here?" The man shouted at me while gesturing with his rocket launcher. The guy is going to misfire one day and kill himself.

"I wish for assistance in taking Hoover dam! I am willing to help out here in any way possible to gain your help." The man, more of a boy really looks at me and slowly nods. He tells me to follow and I do so. I walk my bike next to him, taking their base in and set the vehicle against the house he points to enter. "Do not touch my bike," I tell him. "The offer is off if anything happens to the bike and lives will be forfeit." While I am slightly more calm, I am still majorly pissed off about my town and in a terrible mood.

I enter the house, more of a barrack, to see an old woman. "Hello ma'am," I greet her.

She turns and looks startled at my appearance, "Good lord!" Thank the gods I washed off most of the blood on my way to the fort or this would be worse. "How can I help you outsider?" I tell her my offer and what my goal is. "If you help us with our goal, then I will lend assistance. First, to show you are honest in your offer. Here is a key to our generators. Giant ants have gotten into the armory inside and eaten our gun-powder. We have lost some good men to them as they explode if shot and have more injured. Clean out the place and restart all the generators and it will be a start."

I take the key and leave. Instead of walking to thee generators, I find the medical barracks that I saw on my way into the base. At the sound of injured people, I have to lend my assistance before it is too late. Opening the door, I see five men on the bed, moaning and bleeding out from burns and other wounds. The doctor is amateurishly trying to fix them up, but clearly didn't know what in the world to do.

I call out to him as he is about to shift one of the people with an obvious neck injury, "The hell you doing?!" The man jumps and backs away from the person. I glare at the terrible doctor as I draw out my medical supplies, muttering about dumbass bombers.

I see a few have bad burns and one is missing an arm. The other two have a few shrapnel wounds and the one the doctor was near has a neck bent at a wrong angle, but is still breathing. "Don't move his neck you fool! Now get your ass over here and help me with man!" The man in question was the limbless one. The wound is nearly burnt shut, but it is still bleeding heavily. "You forgot to tourniquet the wound! How the hell are you the doctor here?!" I snarl at the shaking man. I hear a stuttering reply, but I don't even let it register in my mind.

I pull out a leather belt and tighten it around the upper remains of the man's arm. I make sure it is secure before pulling out a scalpel and peeling up the lower layer of skin, evening the ragged flaps as well as getting rid of the burnt areas. The doctor vomits to the side as I do this, but it is necessary. I open the wound further before manipulating the muscles away from the bone and tying off any blood vessels. I use a bone saw to get rid of the sharp edges of the bone before finishing everything up using my focus to make sure everything goes smoothly. I only know the theory behind this, so this is a different experience for me. I suture the wound shut with the remaining skin along with a bit of skin I stole from the man's other arm and manage to bandage it all up as the resident doctor _finally_ pulls himself together. That man must have had some lunch to vomit for an hour straight.

It is also a new experience to treat the third degree burns of this extent, but I make sure all the people become stable. Sure they will all be scarred horrible for the rest of their lives, but they can still enjoy that life after they heal up. "Good. They're going to make it," I observe as I finish bandaging the last of the burn victims.

The doctor comes over, panting like a dog, "Who are you and how are you so good at medicine?"

I answer him with my nickname, "I am called the Singing Doctor at the Follower's fort. One of the few real doctors in this hell on Earth" The man gives a noise of acknowledgment even if he doesn't know the name. The Boomers aren't the most social of people in the wasteland. "Alright, just don't move them too much and give them plenty of stimpacks and bed rest. They should be good to go in a month or two. The broken neck will need a neck brace for a few more months as well. I have to go kill what did this to them."

I stride out of the room without another word, silently relishing in how confused the man must be, and go to the generator. I can see why Arcade takes pride in how he confuses everyone. It is quite fun.

I open the door to the generator room with my sniper rifle in hand as I forgot to get my old hunting one from Arcade and my assault rifle was left at the fort in my haste, strapped to my bag. I walk down the tunnel to the generators. I see an ant, so I shoot it in center mass. It falls down and just as I question what the hell the woman was going on about, it explodes with the force of a grenade. The exoskeleton of the ant acts as shrapnel and even imbeds the skeleton into the wall.

This is going to be a joy of a task, I just know it.


	5. 5 - A Chore

**Sorry I didn't update last week, I was tired from school everyday and by the time I woke up from my nap, it was nine at night and I never got up the energy to edit the next chapter. So here this one is, the assault on the Legion base. I'm sorry that it is shorter than the normal ones, but the next chapter will be longer to make up for it. Just the rapid changing of events would throw people off if I added this to the last or next chapter.**

**Well, enough of my rambling, here is the next installment of Vulpine Wizard**

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><p>Chapter 5 - A chore<p>

The task was a tedious chore. The upside is I got an assault carbine out of the deal that will be replacing my older assault rifle due to its faster fire rate and compact size. I mostly used my sniper to pick off all the ants from the catwalks and flipped the switches when I found them, It wasn't that interesting or hard to be honest. I just couldn't get close or I had to stab them in their ugly faces with my knife.

Some got some good pinches in on my jacketed arms, but they died before it did more than bruise me. Minor annoyances and little scares when an ant the size of a large dog lunges at me aside, they were easy to kill in a rather short amount of time thanks to my load out.

When everything is clear and the ants are dead, I go down and steal about twenty rockets. I have to get a separate bag for the rockets, but that is just something else I take. I can always sell the explosives and they won't miss them. Along the way, I read some of their manuals for weaponry. I focus the entire read to imprint the text in my mind. If I remember every detail of me killing the thugs in Primm along with every surgery, I can remember doing, I'll remember a book if I read through it. I may not have done it before, but there is a first time for everything. I also steal the books as they are too long for a ten minute read as well as numerous. Call it payment for the job.

I leave the room and walk out of the tunnel, thinking over the book I started to read. I can remember the details in perfect clarity, so I guess if I get more textbooks, I can read them to know them better. I should do the medical text too, so I never forget any of the little details of my chosen craft not that I ever will with how many times I've flipped through the text as well as copying each down two times for Arcade. The other copy went to Julie so she can learn from them too.

I see the solar panels for the base are broken ahead of me, so I repair them with magic while I'm in the area. It was easy as they only has a few broken panels and the pieces were right under it. Morons probably blew something up nearby and rubble fell on them. Now it's more than just point and will them back together. I have advance knowledge in the working of electricity and solar engineering thanks to having to fix up my bike all the times it takes a bullet or I slam into a rock from a bad jump. This also got me proficient in repairing vehicles in general, but thanks to the skills, repairing a simple series of panels is an afterthought.

I head back to Pearl, the leader of the Boomers to report in when I hear a woman call out from above me, "Stranger! Come here!" Looking over, I see a guard on the tower, looking down at me in her bomber outfit. I walk up the boards to her and lean against one of the poles supporting the roof, waiting to see what she wants. "You're outside this place a lot, well with you being an outsider and all... We have been having issues with our supply of missiles now that the generator room has been eaten by those little sunsabitches. I will pay you twenty caps for every missile you bring or have on you."

Am I that shady? To sell them their own missiles back... I am, to be honest with myself. Hell, I'm starting a war for my own gain. "I have twenty on me now from a raid on a ruined factory. I was looking for a place to sell them before I came here, but never got around to the Gun Runners." The woman's face lights up like Christmas came early and she shoves a sack of caps into my hand and I give her the rockets. I'm actually quite happy to get rid of them because twenty rockets are quite heavy, especially lugging them around everywhere.

Walking back to Pearl once more, I enter and ask her, "Have I done enough? Oh, I fixed the solar panels while I was over there. You really need to clean them too."

Pearl nods to me. "Go speak with Loyal in the hanger about our dream." Raising my eyebrow at her, I do as she says to learn that their dream is to raise a fallen bomber from a lake. I somehow without saying a word, am given some flotation devices and the detonator, then thrown out of the hanger to go raise it. Blinking at the darkness around me, I shrug and pull on my goggles from around my neck.

The trip to the lake was uneventful to be honest. I saw a few lakelurks, but a high-caliber sniper round took care of those persistent buggers. I check my map again before cloaking all my gear I had to take off for fear of water damage. Which is everything, but my pants and knife. It is too dark for my ears and tail to be seen and it is nice to let them be free while moving around.

I dive into the lake and easily spot the giant bomber at the bottom. I attach the floaters and come up just as I run out of air in my lungs. It took a bit to wire those bastards to the metal. I climb back onto the dock and hit the detonator. I hear a muffled explosion as I put back on my gear, little bubbles litting me know where the bomber is. I see the bomber surface, so I hop back onto my bike and drive through the rest of he night into the sunset back to the hangers.

I inform Pearl of the job done just as the sun peeks over the horizon. Why was this such a hard task? I mean, I did it in one night solo while they have an entire crew! "Planes floating. It's all ready to go ma'am. Are you in?" She smiles at me and nods. "Good. I need to sleep. I'll contact you in some manner when the day comes to fight. Good day." I yawn as I leave and pick a spot under the guard tower to take an eight-hour nap.

I spend the next five days traveling around to find the Cottoncove. House forgot to tell me where the way to the fort is, so I had to find it out myself by interrogating some Legionaries I capture. There are bands of the scum everywhere on the side roads. Once they saw that I wielded magic with a flick of my wrist, they spilled everything and rambled about gods or something. From what I can understand with their accented Latin, they think of me as Mars due to my magic piercing a large boulder. It was just a show of power to get them scared, but now they worship me, calling me the father of Caesar. Once I knew everything, I used this "Godly" power to end their lives in an instant. Weirdos, the lot of them.

I arrive just as night falls. Crawling up the ridge was a treat as I almost rolled down the hill on multiple occasions until I got right above the outpost. Using my vision and focus, I easily dispatch everyone in the cove without anyone noticing thanks to the darkness and lack of noise. I love this rifle so much!

I walk my way down the hill with my carbine on my shoulder, but no one comes out of the building. "Help us!" I hear the slaves I spotted from the ridge yell. I discharge a round into their lock and pull the gate open. The family dashes out of the cage and away. "God bless you!" They call back as they sprint away together without even looking back. I don't really care.

I take the boat to the Fort which is just down river if my info is correct. At the dock, I have a close call with the guards, but I was able to banish my knife and a hunk of wood at them before they raised the alarm. I use my sniper to take down any guards patrolling the posts and pistol once I get to the camps. A sniper is not too useful in close quarters after all. The Legions are arrogant as they have what would be lacking for a skeleton crew on guard for their camp.

It was almost anti-climatic as I cut my way into the people's tents like how I worry about what will happen to me at the Followers and slit the Legions' throats in their sleep. I barely make a noise as I end one life after another, only using my sniper on the guard towers. I must have killed at least a hundred-something people in three hours and no one but the slaves I release even saw me. It wasn't even that hard thanks to a little magic! Sure there were a few close calls, but a spell or two fixed that along with my cloaking spells to hide from patrols. I even kill the supreme leader just by shooting his guards with my M9 and executing him without even waking him up from his sleep! The leader of a nationwide force slept through his base's execution.

As the thought of just what I did comes to me, I fall to my knees in the middle of the dead camp. I just killed all these people and I don't care. I don't care that my hands are almost as bloody as Voldemort. Something wet comes out of my face as I stare at the bloody knife and gun in my hands. How can I just not care that I killed people as young as thirteen in their sleep? I mean, I just killed child soldiers! The worst part was I'm not even upset about my actions, I'm upset on how I respond to them!

I hear a scuffle of feet in front of me and see a little girl, no older than five, holding a teddy bear to her chest. "Mister, are you okay?" She asks me in an innocent little voice. The girl is garbed in some burlap sack with dirt everywhere. The teddy bear is missing a leg and part of an eye from age.

I give her my doctor's grin and nod. "Don't lie! Mama says never to lie!" The girl scolds me in the way only children can. Man, kids could always see through my smile. Observant little devils they are.

I chuckle at the innocent little one that I freed from her cage along with the rest of the slaves. "Alright. I am not okay, but you should get going with the rest. Head over to the Followers, say the Singing Doctor sent you and they will help you guys. Okay?" The little girl nods. I give her a more heartfelt smile and wave my hand at her teddy bear. The bear grows a new leg and eye from all the dirt on it, making it look as good as new. The girl squeaks and after examining the new bear, she gives me a beaming grin and scurries off to the rest of the fleeing slaves. The girl clings to an older woman who gives me a teary smile before dashing off to the boats

Wiping my eyes with my bloody sleeve, I tighten the grip I have on my weapon and head into the weather station of the fort in front of me. I find a slot that look like it is made for the poker chip in one of the consoles. I slide the poker chip into the slot and go down the stairs into the bunker it unlocks.

I see Mr. House's face fill up the screen. "Good. Now, in the room marked Systems Room, there will be a console. Upload the data onto the chip and it will upgrade my army." I nod and take the trip slow. The turrets are dangerous, but as they sweep the room, they expose a little module on their back that is their targeting AI, so once that's gone, they destroy anything around them which includes the other turrets. All I have to do is wait and pick off the damaged turret that makes it through the fight.

I get to the system room quickly and insert the chip into the console. The room rumbles and I see a confirmation window on the console. I take the chip and quickly leave. I head back to Cottoncove by boat and then using my hidden bike, I go to where the stupid robot has marked where the keycode is. I should have gotten the code before I met House like I said, but it was easier just to go there before he suspected anything.

House dies when I get back and he will not see it coming if I have anything to say about it. This just cements the plan. The man wanted me to work for this scum to get the codes and that is unforgivable.

I will finally use my invisibility spell for something and not just my cloaking one. The tool factory had an insane amount of traps, but that was it. The sentries there have already been taken down by time. The traps were easy to dismantle with how much I already know about messing with things. To fix something with magic is to understand it enough to fix what is broken for free.

I find the keycode in the manager's desk and I get back to Vegas as the sun falls. I enter the elevator and then cast my spell. My body disappears into nothing, which is very disorienting as I can't see the hands in front of my face. The elevator opens and I slowly make my way to the computer under the stairs I saw on my first visit. I type the code in and the wall next to me descends. I enter the room and find the next door while avoiding the soldier faced security bot. I don't even want to think about what their upgrade will do to me if I am found.

I enter a large room with a capsule on the end. Looking inside, I see an old man hooked up to all these machines , I press the barrel of my suppressed pistol to the glass and pull the trigger. The old man doesn't even shift as he dies. I sneak back out of the casino and to the Lucky 38 without any problem what so ever. The man's death was truly nothing special, even going into my list of most easy kills to be honest. Bunny stealer was harder to kill because for him, it took at most nine bullets to put him down, but to be fair, the man probably had more drugs in his system than blood.

Going to Benny's suite, I find the robot and I tell him, "House is dead. The Boomers are on our side."

"Wonderful! I'll go and upload myself on the mainframe! Today is the day, Yes Man completes his goal!" The helpful security bot zips away and I go meet him at the hotel penthouse. He sticks a cable from his chassis into House's computer and the robot dies. The error message that was on the screen when I walked in becomes a familiar smiley face. "I'm in. Now with all the access to my files, we are ready to take Hoover dam. Isn't that wonderful?!"

I nod at the thing. "Okay. Get ready and start stockpiling weapons, send all the bots that can be spared out to man hunt the Legion assassin groups I've been hearing about. If any NCR patrols are found, make sure to scout them out before attempting to kill them, take the radio operators out first. We attack when everything is ready and weak. OH, Go by the Great Khan's valley and kill them all in the dead of night. Don't worry about patrols, but I want the balk dead."

"That sounds like a plan intruder! The message has been sent out! Return when you wish to attack! I'd advise at least a year or more. The Legion attacks the dam which will also be pushed back due to your and soon to be our activities, which gives us an extra few months!" Yes Man tells me with the constant lift in his voice. The robot is growing on me I must say.

I ride my bike back to the followers and put it back into my tent. As I start setting up my room, Arcade comes in. "Hey Fox."

I sigh out, "Hey Master. How has the time I've been gone been?" I set out some of my knick nacks, but I keep most in my bag so I don't lose them anywhere.

We banter back and further and Arcade sounds happy that the legion are dead. "While I do like violence, I think that was too much for one person to do on their own. Great job, but next time ask for some help. Killing that many people is never good on your mind." I have to agree with the man. I do feel more than a little disgusted with myself.

I put on a mischievous smile as I reply, "How about next time I need to take on an army that size, I'll take you along for some back up?" The man takes a quick step back, shaking his hands in front of himself with wide-eyes.

"Hell to the No, Foxy! Take Beatrix if you need help!" Arcade nearly shrieks as he makes his escape back to the end tent, trying to toss the job to the resident drunken ghoul cowgirl. The ghoul that we have had to detox more times than we care for, but she is an experienced hand in fighting, so it's not too bad. The tent is where he is conducting his research after yelling at one too many patients for the month like always. We aren't even that far into it yet too. Only about ten to fifteen days in. The man is hopeless at social interaction.


	6. 6 - The Beginning of a Mess

**YO!**

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><p>Chapter 6 - The Beginning of a Mess<p>

I settle back into the camp, practicing my magic in secret to make it more powerful and the reserves much larger. I can hold the focus for ten minutes straight for a surgery without passing out, but I am done for five hours after that. Five minutes of focus makes me tired, but I can carry on with the rest of the day fine, so I mostly stick with five minutes worth every six hours if I can help it. This is it being on constantly though, so I make sure to turn it off when it is not needed to increase the time. I leave every month for some status updates on the whole attacking the two giant armies in the western part of this country. It seems to be going well, the legion soldiers die pretty fast from the ambushes I help plan when I can, taking loads of time reading old world strategies with guerrilla warfare thrown in to help things along. While smart, Yes Man does not have a database on human tactics other than point and kill.

The NCR are still as unorganized as they always have been and notice nothing of the decreased numbers of their enemy other than the obvious part that I killed Caesar, which has earned me praise and assassination attempts from both factions. My power makes the NCR nervous is what I can guess from the occasional assassin that they send my way. It is easy to understand why the Legion sends out their kills for my head . The attacks died down quickly however after I delivered the cut up body of one of the assassins to the NCR office. I came up with a story with the help of Arcade and Julie that the man had been attacked in Freeside by junkies, that we were contacted by the kings to bring him back for a proper burial due to me being on bitch duty for that day. I believe they thought we didn't know what they were doing and stopped before we did.

A few months pass until I've been in the waste a full four years judging by the seasons, maybe a little less. Wow, it has been such a long time. My medicine skills have only gotten better and I finally get out from Arcade's hands to go off and set up my very own doctor tent! The sign of a master doctor is their own workstation around these parts. I also still have yet to ward my sleeping tent, but I have become a light sleeper to ward off assassins, just in case.

I've found a few more medical texts and gun books that I've memorized to my own headache. Sucking in that much information hurts after a while or if I do it too fast, which I always do as I have little free time that I don't spend sleeping. Now that I am finally calming down and not pulling all-nighters to make up for my lack of experience, I start seeing some really glaring issues with our fort as well as some issues that I can fix in the Freeside to help along the fort.

On one of the very few days off I have a month, I decide to fix some of the issues around that I see to make the place better. I go over to Julie in her office who is currently wrapping up an injured mans arm from what looks like a knife wound. "Julie! I have an offer!"

The woman looks up as she continues to wrap the gauze around the man's wound. "We have such a low supply of medicine and the like, so why don't I see if I can convince some of the stores around here to cut a deal like we have with the farmers? They scratch our back, we scratch theirs kind of thing."

The head doctor hums as she tapes the gauze together to keep the bandage nice and tight. "Alright, that sounds good," Julie nods at me before turning to the patient, "You're good to go sir. Be careful next time you visit the strip." The man nods while holding his newly bandaged arm as he left the room. Once the door closes, she asks, "Who will you be asking?"

I scratch my head, below the bandana. "Um. I was thinking the Atomic Wrangler." I see her face shift to fury and I quickly add the hook to keep her from exploding at me, "I know they are pushers, but they have a GREAT still set up in their back! They can make all the Med-X and pure ethanol we need and if we can save enough money from this deal, we can get a chemistry set to make things like stimpacks! I'm sure if I offer our services to fix up their stills to be even better, they will help us!"

The woman seems to think this over before grudgingly nodding, a resigned look in her eyes. "I don't like it, but if we can save money and if it helps our patients, I guess it is the obvious course of action," the spiked-haired woman sighs.

"I know it's bad, but think of how much easier it will be with a steady supply of Med-X. The funds I'm sending from the Lucky 38 to here is only letting us scrape by at this point." I have Yes-Man running the newly open casino and giving five percent to the followers, but running a hospital for a city is a lot of money we do not have.

The woman nods, but still doesn't look any happier. "Come back with the details and since you are looking to improve conditions, we need Bill and Jacob sober, so see if you can help them while you are out." I nod and say my farewell then exit the office, letting in a man with the shakes. Another junkie here to get a fixer or something like that.

I know that Bill drinks inside that ruins next to the Wrangler, so I'll talk to him on my way back from the deal, try and get him to come here for the detox. Jacob is near Mick's, so I'll save that for later or if I need to talk to that pusher Dixon. Jackass is probably behind their continued addiction because I know they aren't working with that amount of chems in their system.

I shrug on my vest over my buttoned up coat then grab Maria and Morgana, the M9. Once I am equipped to take on well-trained thugs, which there are thankfully none of in this area, I leave the fort and head over to the prostitution hub of Freeside.

The trip there is uneventful, if messy. Freeside is not the cleanest place and that applies to bodies too. The homeless and junkies that starve in the streets lie in the streets until someone gets tired of seeing it and either throws them away or burns the corpses. A new rebellion against rival junkies apparently broke out and they took knives to each other. Most of the slums of Freeside is coated with the blood of what looks to be about twenty men with the corpses of fifteen just left there, looted bare of course.

I open the rickety door to the Atomic wrangler and as I step in, a blast of body odor, filth and, of course, sex slams into my face, nearly making me growl. I suppress the urge as I go over to the bar where James is on duty today. I take a seat at the bar in front of him. "Evening friend! We don't get many of the Followers around here, what would you like?"

I rub my nose to try to get the smell out or at least lessen before I answer, "I'll have a bottle of whiskey and I would like to talk to you about a... proposition that would benefit the two of our respective fields." The man seems to perk up at the sound of this as he puts the bottle on the table. I put down the ten caps for the bottle as I break the seal. "You see, running the only medical area in this area is hard and... expensive. We have trouble affording the bare essential medicine even with the help I have coming in from Mr. House." I take a shot of liquor from the bottle, letting the burn draw my attention from the sounds and smell of vice around me.

"I'll be blunt as we are both busy men. The Followers would like a deal with you and your stills. We need a supplier for Med-X and alcohol for disinfectant. You have the best stills that can make a constant batch. What would you like in return if you take this request?"

The man hums to himself as he takes out a shot glass and pours himself a drink from my bottle. The man downs the whiskey before answering. "You Followers have some mighty fine mechanics among your numbers. If you maintenance my stills and upgrade them, I can make you all the pure alcohol you need as well as toss in some Med-X as long as you supply the ingredients." I nod, the deal going as I thought it would.

"That sounds fair enough," I tell the man as I take another shot of alcohol.

The man gives himself another shot before tacking on, "But I am in some need of assistance. If you can help me find some employees of a... special type, I will sweeten the deal by building another still specifically for you all to use." I gesture for him to continue. "See, we have all kinds of clients that we would like to cater, but their kinks are just too out there. I need a ghoul cowboy, a sexbot and a suave gentleman. If you can find me them by a month's end, I'll put the request in when the last employee comes in the door."

I stare at him and voice the first thing that comes to mind, "Sexbot? They make those?"

The man shakes his head, "I think you'll need to get a programming routine or something and find a robot to use it on. I'm sure Ralph can acquire one for you Mr. Fox. Hmm..."

"What?" I ask at the humming man.

"Nothing, you just have the same alias as a wanted Legion agent. Strange, but you look nothing like him, so you should be fine." I heard about that guy. The man apparently lead a raid on Nipton a few days after Primm fell and butchered everyone. One of the survivors told about the man wearing a dog's head as a helmet. "So. Do we have a deal?"

I nod and get from the bar stool. "I'll have to talk it over with Julie, but I believe we have a deal sir. It's been a pleasure and I'll be sending the employees by soon." We shake and and I stride out of the room. Once the bar's door closes behind me, I zip to my right and away from the den. I let my stomach bring up my breakfast before I gain control back over myself.

That place smells awful! Sure, I have finally come out of the rampant hormonal stage where my body NEEDED a mate and can even sleep around, but god damn if that place was a little too much. I mean, FUCK! I've slept with a few women of the night from the White Gloves to scratch an itch. Well, after I conquered my violet hormones to make it accept a mate wasn't coming anytime soon. But no matter how much acceptance of my instincts I have, that was worse than the first time I had to go in there for a job!

Sighing, I rinse my mouth out with some water before walking over to the ruins down the road. I enter through the broken doorway to see Bill sitting on a cardboard mat, downing a bottle of whiskey like no tomorrow. Sighing, I call out, "Bill!"

The man jumps and nearly spills his drink before he brings it right side up. "Wha-" the man slurs up at me.

I crouch down to his level, meeting his blood-shot eyes with my own set of green eyes. "Bill. Julie is worried about you man. You can't keep doing this to yourself," I tell the man with a small frown on my face. I respect this man, or I did. The man is an excellent mechanic and taught me a few tricks to fix up most plumbing. The man single-handedly rigged up running water into Freeside.

"Ahh, Julie. I... I can't just stop. This whiskey tastes like piss, but if I don't drink it, I'll feel like I'll die before I get another drop! Plus Dixon should be around soon and I can't keep the man waiting, he won't sell me anything today if I do!" The man slurs out, his torso tilting to the side before correcting itself.

So Dixon does have a hand in this. "So. Does Jacob also go to Dixon for his chems?" The man absently nods as he takes a swig of his liquor. "Alright. Here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go talk to Dixon, get him to stop selling alcohol to you. You will be going to Julie for detoxing and rehab. The woman does care about you Bill and seeing you drunk all day and night worries her so much."

The man meets my eyes in a panic, "But the pain!" the man cries.

I hold up a hand, stopping the man before he can really get going. "I'll give you three fixers. One every two days for the week. With Julie's help, you'll be fine soon and get over this addiction with only a little pain."

The man stares up at me before whispering, "Do you promise? I can't go though that pain again." I give him a smile and a hand to bring him to his feet. The man hesitantly puts down his bottle before taking the hand. I pull him up and lead him out the back where it is quicker to get to the fort. I notice him tense as we go through the door, looking longingly back at his bottle of booze.

I steer him forward and point to the fort. "Remember, if you stay clean for the rest of today, I'll give you a fixer before you go to sleep, so you wake up feeling better in the morning." The man shakily nods before staggering off to the fort down the road. I follow a bit behind him as I have to go the same direction.

As we walk, I notice a man wearing standard mercenary garbs with a baseball cap on. The man's face is dirty with a small thin mustache across his lip. Dixon. I take long strides as he goes to confront Bill. The mechanic turns to speak with him just as I reach them. I grab Dixon by the throat and give Bill a glare, sending the drunk scrambling to the fort in his stumbling pace. I drag the struggling drug dealer into an abandoned store before throwing him against the counter.

I don't give him a chance to speak before I deck him across the jaw. The man hits the floor, his head in a daze as I mount his stomach. The dealer looks up in time to see my hands descend on his throat as I begin to throttle the bastard. I've seen what his drugs have done to people. Ebola is more merciful than the shit this man sells.

The drugs liquify the organs they affect after too long of use due to the poisons he puts in it to be more addictive, so you have to kill yourself through the addiction or else you go through one of the most severe withdrawals I've ever seen. I've narrowed the ingredient down to something in the bloatfly variety with its slight acidic nature. The man has been poisoning the people I am suppose to help and protect!

The dealer tries to pry my hands off, but he is just a weak human and I am a predator on top of the food chain in this desert. The little man doesn't even make me try harder before his face turns a deep red, his eyes bulging out of his head and feet scrambling around behind him.

In only one minute, the man is dead under me. I keep my hands tense over his throat, my thumbs pressing into his Adam's apple, as I focus for a heartbeat. I find none and there is not even a spark in his bulging eyes, all the blood vessels broken inside the orbs.

I slowly release the man's neck, my hands tingle from the flush of blood that finally gets into my fingers. I stand and straighten out my vest and weapons before I give the man's neck a crushing stomp, the crack of his neck snapping echoes the empty room.

The job down, I grab the collar of the man's leather vest and drag him into a back room where I grab up all his drugs and dump them in my pouch. This was just a mugging from one of his clients that got out of hand . After I check them over, I can also follow through with my promise to Bill for free from the drugs I looted from the dead man. I nonchalantly walk out of the window I had thrown the man through as if I didn't just vicious kill another human being.

Now I have to find Jacob and convince him to go get clean. After that, I think I'll talk to Beatrix to see if she wants to Atomic Wrangler job. Old Ben might want a change of pace than standing under the sun or that weirdo Santiago might take the job. I'll make a stop by Ralph and Mick's store to check out the sexbot program after I get done talking to Jacob.

I make it to Jacob's little squatting spot in a few minutes of walking down the street. I find the man trying to desperately get another huff out of the jet inhaler. I silently take a seat next to the man as he focused entirely on getting a little bit of a high. After the man gave up and threw the jet container across the room, only than did he acknowledge my presence by jumping off his ass and falling on his side. The man squints at me before exclaiming, "Fox! My boy, how have you been!"

I answer the man, "Been doing good Jake. Got my own tent at the Followers now. You however have not been doing too good." The man looks down at his feet as he sits back down next to me. "Julie is worried man. This jet you're doing is killing you man, Dixon laces it with acid to make it more addicting, but it is killing you."

"I'd rather die than go through withdrawal again," The man says with absolute conviction.

I give a sigh as I press my head against the stone wall. "I knew you would say that. That is why I bribed Dixon to never sell you jet again. Three hundred caps is keeping his end of the deal along with a death threat from the guy who killed Caesar. I'm sorry, but you will be going into detox along with our friend Bill." The man gives a groan into his hands. "The good news is that I've made a deal with the Atomic Wrangler. They are supplying the fort with Med-X and alcohol, so we might be able to afford a chem lab. You can brew up stimpacks and fixers as a job at the fort. Get back into your old profession before you found jet."

The man nods with sadness and a good amount of fear in his eyes. "I know it isn't much, but I'll give you the same offer I gave Bill. At the end of today and every two days you are clean for a week, I will give you a fixer to curb the withdrawal symptoms." The man gives a groan as he nods and leaves towards the fort. No one really sells drugs in Freeside thanks to the Kings and Dixon was too 'Dangerous' to take out as his operation was rumored to be backed by the legion to weaken the people of NCR.

I rub my face rapidly, already tired with all the dealings I've had to do today. 'I'm a doctor, not a silver-tongued politician!' I complain internally. After I bring myself to get out of the homeless den, I exit around back to see Santiago sitting around with blank eyes.

The man looks up as I approach. "What can Santiago do for you fine sir today?"

I shake my head at how weird this guy is and answer his question. "I'm looking for a worker at the Atomic Wrangler for an escort job. People have kinks for the suave business guy and you fit the bill perfectly."

"B-but... Santiago owes the Wrangler moneys!" the man protested. "It sounds great, but Santiago can't pay off the debt!"

I sigh as I rub my forehead. "Look. It's WITH the Wrangler. I'm sure you can cut a deal to pay off your debt as one of their employees before you can start bringing in a full paycheck. It's better than being homeless behind some destroyed building."

"Yeah..." The man mutters and continues with more energy, "Yeah! I could work it off and be with all those ladies at the same time. Thanks friend! I'll be on my way right now!" The man spins to his feet and begins to book it towards the Wrangler with a grin on his face. Okay then. 'I wonder what his reaction will be when he finds out that the clients will most likely be men?'

I give a yawn before walking across the street to Mick and Ralph's store and open the door. I notice Ralph standing, as always, in the front of the store. "How can I help you Mister Fox?"

I give him a wave as I stride up to his desk, "I have come across a strange request. I need to acquire a program for a... Sexbot. You think this is something you can get? Also where to find said sexbot."

The man gives me a blank stare before shaking his head. "W-well... I can get you the programming in about three days and for five hundred caps. There might be a robot left by that place behind the dropped highway... um... Cerulean Robotics, that may hold a useable model."

I reach over and offer my hand to seal the deal. Ralph claps the offered with his own hand and we shake on the deal. I drop five hundred caps of my very small supply onto the desk with no problem. I just made a huge purchase that I was saving up for months for and a little low on money.

I leave the store and head over to the Fort to talk with Beatrix for the Wrangler job and Julie to see if she can agree to the terms that James laid out.

I find Julie in her office with a patient that has a terrible cough that sounds too hard just to be a cold. "You have Bronchitis sir. Lay off the cigarettes and take some bed rest and you should be fine in about a week. The man nods as he stumbles out of the room, coughing out his lungs.

"That sounds bad," I comment once the door is shut. Julie nods as she cleans her tools. "Anyways, the deal has worked out better than I thought it would. In exchange for our maintenance on their stills, the Wrangler will supply us with alcohol and if we give the supplies, Med-X. I was also given a job that I'm almost done with to acquire us our own still in the Wrangler for just our use."

Julie nearly squeals and wraps her arms around me. Using her impressive strength, she picks me up and swings me in a circle before setting me back down where I fist stood. Well... that's kind of amazing. Wonder if she works out in private? The head doctor suddenly realises what she has just done and steps back with a blush. The woman clears her throat and continues as if the hug never happened. "So, what's this special job of yours?"

I scratch my head with one hand as I readjust my clothing, "I have to... find three special... prostitutes for James. A cowboy ghoul which I will be asking Beatrix to see if she's interested, a suave gentleman that I got that weirdo Santiago to agree to and I now have to find a sexbot."

The woman stares at me. "A... Sexbot? Like one made completely for sex?" I see a blush start to form on her face.

I smirk at the blush and shake my head before my boss gets any ideas, "No. A robot reprogrammed for sex. I don't think a handy will be that great from a protectron, but that's what Jame's clients want and I have to find one. I've already got the programming on the way from Mick's."

Julie's face pales when she hears about the model. I nod at her in agreement with wide eyes too, making sure she believes me. Julie may be active, but the robot is something I have strong feelings that she would not enjoy. "W-well... I better g-get back to work." Julie places her hand on my shoulder, "Thank you for what your doing for the camp. Bill and Jacob are already in Detox because of you and are making their way for a recovery." I nod with a smile before I leave to talk to our ghoul bodyguard.

It is actually quite easy to convince Beatrix to go work as an escort. All I really had to say was there might be a discount on booze if she works there and the woman was off in a second. I spend the rest of the day working as a doctor instead of a mercenary because I still need the program if I want to get the sexbot.

It seems that a good case of lung infects are going around thanks to the shift in temperature, heading to the lower seventies thanks to an abnormally cold winter coming in. My body is okay with the shift, but the rest of the citizens are having bad sinus problems or lung issues.

After three days of picking uop the slack as some of our doctors went down thanks to the infections, I am finally free in five days of contant work. I haven't had more than five hours of sleep in the past five days. If I'm not helping people, I was helping Julie or Arcade take care of some of the doctors that got the issues bad thanks to being around so many sick people.

A good things that has been happening was Bill and Jacob are recovering quickly and should be fully functioning in a few more days thanks to the supply of fixers and the sheer amount of determination the men are showing.

When I am free, I jog over to Mick's after pulling on my equipment as I still sometimes get attacked by some junkie hoping I have some drugs in my coat. I grab the program and walk off to find the robot shop where I can pick up a robot that may or may not be left there.

As I walk, I see some NCR soldiers hanging around a building to the side. In an instant, I recognize it is the place I murdered Dixon in. I stroll over the soldiers and ask, "What happened?"

One of the younger soldiers shrugs, "Looks like Dixon bit the dust. We're waiting for an officer that specializes in crime scenes to check it out with Dixon being one of our citizens and all. Basic human rights and all that pizazz."

I hum along with the man's words, "Well. I hope you find whoever did it, but knowing what Dixon was, it probably was one of the street thugs or clients that got shafted by him" The man nods his agreement. "Well, I'm off. Have a pleasant day fellas." The soldier and a few of his buddies wave as I depart to find this blasted machine.

I track the factory down to a dead end alley off in a broken part of Vegas that I only really know about in passing. I know that many drug deals happen back here, but that is really it. I find the doorway to the place quite easily as there are really only three doors that have not collapsed in due to the apocalypse or age.

I walk into the factory with Maria out and at the ready. I pass through the place and the only thing I come across are a few giant rats that I just punt into a wall. Once they are struck, the rats seem to think better of fighting me and left to do what giant rats do. Probably off to eat walls or reproduce at an insane rate.

The robot, a protectron like I thought, was standing in one of the stasis pods that they charge in. Next to the pod is the computer that goes with it and after tapping a few keys, I find that the computer still is connected to the electric grid, so it turns on in a blink of green light.

I type in a few simple commands and using the illogical method of hacking, I pick out a random name and then the closest match to it. On my final attempt, I am able to pick out the right code which is "hiking" for some strange reason. People in the old world did not pick out the best passwords.

I take the disk out of my bag and stuck it in the floppy disk slot in the side of the monitor. I approved the data overwrite and after a minute, the program is in the robot and the pod opens. The robot steps out and approaches me. "Greetings human, please assume the position for intercourse program set three."

I wave my hands, "No. You are to go to the bar, the Atomic Wrangler, and work for James. He is your new owner, understand?"

The robot replies in its grainy and metallic voice, "Affirmative." I shake my head as it starts walking away. I guess it's back to the daily grind for me. I walk with the robot to the Wrangler and enter the place, taking shallow breaths through my nose to help control myself.

I see Beatrix getting hammered at the bar as Santiago is chatting with a handsome gentleman in a nice suit. I lead the robot to James, "This is your new owner," I absently tell the robot who clicks out an answer before standing by the counter, out of the way, but still there.

James comes out from around the counter to start inspecting the sexbot. "This the machine?" The man asks.

"Aye. The only problem was getting the programming from Mick. It should recognize you as its owner, but if not, I think Danny is a computer expert and can be hired for his services. It better work though, that program was expensive."

The man turns and reaches out his hand. I take the hand and shake it as he spoke, "Good doing business with you Mr. Fox. I hope you have a pleasant day and don't hesitate to stop by, you are always welcome here." I nod and head out. The fort came survive without me, but the doctors are still sluggish from the sicknesses they suffered from. Amazing how I use to think this world was hell and here I am helping a man get a robot prostitute. If my thirteen year old self could see me now. Ah, enough wondering about silly things, I have work to do.


	7. 7 - To the Valley

**Here's an extra long chapter because I wrote it as such. Enjoy!**

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><p>Chapter 7 - To the Valley<p>

"Arcade! I need a clamp!" I yell out from across the tent from where I am performing surgery on a man who got shot earlier today. The tool is given to me and I am able to get right back to work on drawing out the bullet that seems to be sitting in the man's stomach.

I slowly reach into the stomach with tweezers and after a little poking around, I find the bullet and draw it out. The acid covered piece of lead seems to be broken in half, so there is at least one more pieces sitting around in the man's stomach. "Dammit," I mumble as I go back in.

The tent suddenly explodes in activity as three NCR officers burst into the room with their weapons raised and at the ready. "Fox no-name, you are under arrest for the murder of the NCR citizen Jeff Dixon. Put the weapon down and surrender!" I glance up at the officer to see a pudgy man with a red face that vaguely reminds me of my uncle.

I look at my hands and see that I have only a scalpel and tweezers in my hand. 'Weapons?' I thought to myself. I shake my head at the stupidity and continue to root around for the bullet until I feel a slight hit on the end of the tweezers, "Ahah! Got you, ya litta bastard!" I quietly exclaim as I pull out the rest of the slug by the size of the fragment.

The officer continues to yell as I pull out some thread and start stitching up the man's stomach with something that can dissolve in the body. Once the cut is closed, I let the skin folds come back into place and just as I begin the next set of sutures, I feel a hand on my shoulder that pulls me backwards violently. I stumble backwards and slam into a tray of unused tools, which flies everywhere when my body hits them. Growling, I focus back to the situation that was happening around me to see the officer holding a firearm in my face.

"What?! I'm fucking busy you little bitches!" I snarl at the officer, letting my sharpened canines show to make sure they people know I am not happy in the least. "Arcade, can you stitch up the man while I deal with this?" The man calls out his answer as he steps around us and pull out his own needle and thread.

The officer beckons his buddies forward and they haul me up to my feet. As the men manhandle me out of the tent, the one that threw me starts sprouting off the Miranda rights to me. "You are under arrest for murder, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be h-"

I cut the man off before he can finish the rights, "Shove that bullshit up your ass! I didn't kill anyone in the last fucking month! The last person I took down was one of the siegers that couldn't take a bullet to the stomach without dying and that was a justified case of self-defense!"

I see Julie running over as officer turns. I shift my attention back in time to notice his arm raised. I try to move, but the two lackeys have a good hold on me and all I can do is take the heavy punch across my cheekbone. "Hey! What do you think you're doing to one of my doctors?!"

The officer turns to Julie and says in a smug, hearty tone that makes me want to kill him all the more, "We are taking this scum to hang for the murder of a noble NCR citizen."

I spoke up, "They are saying I killed Dixon or some shit like that!"

Captain Small-dick turns and gives me another good one across the eye as he shouts, "Silence! You were seen at the scene of the crime by an anonymous witness!"

"Bullshit! The NCRs been trying to kill me for months! I bet this is just some ploy after I killed all your little assassins!" I scream at the man from my position. "I didn't touch Dixon! I may have hated his guts for what he was doing, but I'm not some guy that murders people randomly! I'm a fucking doctor!"

Julie finally got in between us before the officer punches me in the face again. "Captain! You would believe nameless street rabble over Doctor Fox's and my word? Fox has shown himself to be a trustworthy individual and no matter how much I hate that he did it, he did take down the leader of your enemy and a large bit of their army too!"

The fire in Julie's eyes contradicts everything I have seen of the kind and sweet woman. The boss gives off the feel of a lioness protecting her pride more than a simple doctor trying to defend an employee. My instincts swell at the sight of her fierceness, but I crush them down before they can affect me. I do let a small smirk come to my lips when I see the officer's dumbstruck face.

The man tries to stutter out a reply, but with one eyebrow raise and a shift in her stance, the man couldn't face the woman's glare. The man beckons his men to release me and quickly strides out of the camp to get as much distance between him and Julie as possible. "This isn't over!" The man calls back just before he gets through the gate.

I rub my face, ignoring the blood that I smear on my forehead as I do so. I turn around with a sigh and head back into my tent where Arcade is finishing up my patient for me. "Thanks Master," I mutter as I take a seat next to the table. The anti-social man just grunts out his reply as he pats the bandage and drags the man off the table. The limp body found its home on one of the few blood-stained mattresses for resting patients within my tent. Once the man positions the man to fit on the mattress, he strolls out of the tent after patting me on the shoulder.

I hear the tent flaps shut and turn to see Julie standing by the entrance with her arms crossed and a stern expression on her face. "Did you kill Dixon?" The woman asks in a no-nonsense voice that reminds me a bit of McGonagall.

I nod shamefully. I know it was a bad thing to do, but he was hurting so many people. I glance up and see the disappointed look on her face that just destroys me. I would rather be shot in the head again than see that look on her face directed at me.

I can feel my ears flatten against the top of my head as I shrug my head down further. "I understand you did with the Legion and a small part of me even supported it, but this was a single man Fox! While a chem pusher, he didn't deserve to die! Do you understand what I'm saying?"

I want to nod and say I do, I really do, but I can't lie to her. I can never lie to the woman who has shown me so much kindness. "I'm sorry, I know what you are saying, but... I just can't understand truly why his life was precious. I know the theory behind all that life is precious, but I just don't feel any connections with humans in general, not fully. For you guys, my lack of human connection doesn't matter as you are all part of my family, my... pack, but for people like Dixon or even that officers, I don't mind having to kill them too much if it would be to help more people."

Julie only gives me a shake of her head that makes me hunch further like a cowering dog. "Look, you are a promising doctor, but this can't go unpunished." I still when I hear the word, "Punish."

"Please don't kick me out! I know it was wrong! I do, but the man was poisoning people with addictive acid lacing his drugs! He was hurting people! Please, please don't kick me out of the pack, please!" I beg the woman, tears almost in my eyes at the thought of being alone in this world again.

The head doctor just sighs and beckons me to follow her. I do so, too upset at the thought that I will be losing one of the places I could almost call home, again. Julie leads me into her office and locks the door behind me. I standing awkwardly next to her table as she leans against the wall.

After a pause, she starts speaking, "I'm not kicking you out dear. I know you were just trying to help things in your own way, but there will be a punishment for your actions. I can't let the NCR take you. I may be friends with the major, but I know what the NCR does to people they don't like and with all those assassins, you won't get a trial if you go with them."

Julie rubs her temple as she leans further into the wall. "That leaves sending you off on an escort job. There is a trader caravan that is heading to Utah in a few days and they need a medic. They are giving us five thousand caps to hire one of us and it will be a dangerous journey that will last three months.

While you are there, try to get some training from the native tribes. I hear they have great medicine men and knowing some of their methods could be beneficial to the followers." I could feel my tail starting to wag from my excitement. I get this great chance to learn and Julie isn't too mad at me! I try to control it, but the movement caught the doctor's eye. "What is that in your pant leg?"

I take a step back and try the door. "I have the key Fox." The doctor jingles the key in front of me. Fucking emotion based tail! Four goddamn years I have been fine and when things are looking up, when I can go off and learn obscure medicine and help more people, my tail has to blow things! "Fox," Julie says warningly while placing her hands on her hips. The image of a mother trying to get information out of their kid. Well, except with the tall punk mohawk.

I can feel tears starting to fall down my face, "P-ple-please don't b-be mad. Please!" I beg her. The woman's face softens when she sees the tears and gets off the wall to stand in front of me. I hesitantly reach up and pull of my bandana. Julie shows a lot of curiosity as no one in camp has seen me without my bandana on. "I-I accidentally f-found a-a base that Keyes set up wh-when I was thirteen." I rub my hair to let the ears pop up to their two-inch height. "I got exposed to some f-fox gene ex-experimental stuff and it g-gave me ears and a t-tail." I pull out my tail and she gasps at the sight of the animistic parts. "It also a-affected my m-mind for a more... beast-like m-mentailty. It's why I c-can k-kill so many people." I see her look at my tail with a detached look. "Please don't hate me," I beg her, my tears still streaming down my face.

Julie steps forward and pulls me down for a hug. I've been taller than her since I was sixteen, so being halfway to eighteen has me a good few inches taller than the woman, even with her hairstyle. "It's okay," she mumbles in my ear. When I hear this, I return the hug, burying my face in her lab coat. "I don't mind the little additions. Now, we'll talk about it more when you get back. Just know that it's fine."

We let each other go and I straighten out my clothing while she gives me a little smile. I push the tail back down and pull the bandana over my head. "I have to say that you do a good job hiding the tail. I never would have though you had a three and a half-foot extension coming out of your back even if I believed it was possible." I give a tentative smirk at the compliment as I clean up my face. "Okay, the caravan is waiting by the Brook's Tumbleweed ranch. You have three days to get ready and go." I nod and leave. I do need to pack my babies and a few essentials.

I pull on my vest under my lab coat and put my weapons in their homes. My carbine and sniper are hung off my torso and my packs find their places around my body. I pack away a few cans of food and empty canteen for my water spell. I really need to start making new spells. I guess I can work on a glamour for my ears. The tail will take some rune work to hide that part. Maybe a storage rune array that doesn't disconnect the tail from my body, but makes a little portal into the storage space, centering around the base of the tail.

Yeah, that's going to be a hard one to figure out. I think I'll stick with the glamour spell first and foremost for now. When I figure out how to store my tail away, I'll do the same for my ears so I can finally let my hair be free from the bandana. I miss wearing shorts outside, but the ears can be managed faster and give me grounding for the tail spell.

Once I am ready, I set out immediately, trusting that the doctors will keep my stuff safe until I return. I set out the moment I am ready. I know where Brook's farm is and it should be easy to reach there in the next two days by foot.

The only issue that arises in my travel are a few fiends and a swarm of cazadors. Both sets are easily put down by my carbine before they can get close to hurting me. I'm lucky that the fiends didn't have any guns though as they got the drop on me, waiting to ambush people in the ruins of an old factory.

I sleep in a burnt out car for the night and in the morning, I make it to the ranch that Julie told me about. Once I exterminate the giant ant population in the barn, I start looking around the building, but all I find is a few cans of food which I take for myself along with some bullets.

I give up after an hour and start looking around in the surrounding parts. It takes me five hours, five fucking HOURS, to find the caravan. They were hiding in a cave three miles away and made little arrows on the house that pointed which way they went.

I stumble in the cave as the sunset behind me to see five people and a few mutated cows with supplies on their backs. "Thank fucking Eris! I finally found you guys," I exclaim as I approach the old man who is sitting on a wooden crate that looks to hold booze.

The old man stands up at the sight of me. "You the medic?" I nod as I stop in front of him. "Took you long enough. One more day and I would have started subtracting money from the payment to you guys. Anyways, name's Jed. Jed Masterson. Anyways, we are here for one more day just encase someone picked up our broadcast and wants to join in. Feel free to meet the crew, we're going to be together for a while."

I nod and don't do any of that. I park myself down in a corner of the cave and drift off to sleep. Running around looking for the people took all my energy.

It turns out that no one is coming anyway or if they are, they are too late. Jed calls for all of us to get up and get moving the moment the sun broke over the horizon. I pick myself up off the ground and follow next to the cows, near the middle of the group.

The first week turns out to really try everyone on the trip. We apparently had the misfortune of having a navigator that had a broken pipboy and a severe jet addiction that I could care less about fixing. After all the time without his beloved drug, the man got the jitters so bad he had a seizure right off the side of a cliff, cutting our number down to five.

Whenever I get a free moment to myself, I practice my glamour spell which is actually coming along quite nicely. Thanks to my experience in the art of invisibility, hiding the ears from sight is not too hard. I'll still have to figure out enchantments so I can ground the damn thing, but as it is, I can probably take my bandana off in low light and be fine.

That night at camp after the man died, we were all quiet, or most of us were. One of the bodyguards would not stop bitching about the decisions that Jed keeps making. I let it happen, but when she wakes me up for the fifth time in the evening, I snap. "Would you shut the hell up woman! You're being paid big bucks for an easy job! Would you rather being clearing a cazador nest for some junkie that probably won't pay you or work for a trader that will?!" The woman just glares at me. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Now be quiet, we all need some sleep."

This seemed to have put the woman in a fouler mood, but she kept the moaning down to a minimum. As we walk along yet another canyon, Jed spoke up, "Now this is going to be a long journey, we aren't even halfway there yet. Now listen to old Jed speak to pass the time."

I walk a little faster to keep close to hear some stories. The constant slow-paced walking is mind-numbing and I need some reprieve from it. "A few decades back, folks in the NCR started to hear about a community in northern Utah called New Canaan." Is that who they are trading with?

"Didn't know much about them, except that they were religious folks. Sent out missionaries to talk to the tribes. We've seen our share of cuts, but the new Canaanites, they were honest traders. Good fighters, too. Raiders wouldn't tangle with 'em." Now that speaks volumes about their skill level. Raiders are some of the dumbest motherfuckers I've ever seen.

"But then the Legion appeared in Arizona. I reckon mister Fox here knows all about them, seeing as he was the one who assassinated their leader." Figures the guy knows about that. The remaining bodyguards all look at me with awe in their eyes that makes me more than a little uncomfortable.

Jed smirks at my discomfort and continues the story. Bastard. "Turns out Caesar's war chief, the Malpais Legate, was a New Canaanite. Joshua Graham. Legend goes that Graham was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the whole damned Legion. The New Canaanites wouldn't talk about him. They were ashamed, not that I can blame them. Well at Hoover Dam, the Malpais Legate finally met his match. Hanlon and Oliver kicked his New Canaanite butt right back over the river."

I wonder how this pertains to our destination? Are we going to trade with the New Canaanites or just something to pass the time. Both are fine, but I do like to know the reason behind things. "Caesar had to make an example for the others, to show them that even at the highest level, failure wouldn't be tolerated. He had Graham covered in pitch, lit on fire, and thrown into the Grand Canyon. People say he didn't even scream on the way down."

The man laughs a bit for some reason after he finish that leg of the story. "I reckon if Caesar didn't do that, we'd be in a much deeper heap of trouble than we already are from the Legion." I find that I have to agree. If Graham was such a badass, than killing him probably was not the best plan for Caesar to do, especially when Graham probably could have killed me if he was around. "Anyways, not long after, some of the slaves and tribals started to talk. Said Graham wasn't dead. After his legacy, it really wasn't a big surprise. All this talk bothered Caesar, so he forbid the name Joshua Graham to ever escape his mens' lips. Wanted Graham erased from history, not that it worked."

That sounds an awful lot like Voldemort and how people reacted to him even when they thought he was dead. I guess Caesar takes after the Minister a bit. Ah, that must have been why it was so easy to kill his army, the man was probably a fool outside of battle.

"All that is left is a tribal ghost story about the burned man, but the New Canaan's been silent for a long time. Maybe it;s a coincidence. Maybe the Malpais Legate is dead. Or maybe Graham crawled out of that Canyon and went home."

The story did a great job killing time for that day and we set up camp as night falls once more. Maybe I can meet this Burned Man, find out what happened if he's still alive that is. Might be a bit interesting. Also, need to see if he is still loyal if by some miracle he actually is alive, so I can kill him before he becomes a problem.

The rest of the trip took three weeks, making it a month-long walk and that just proves that it will be another month-long walk back. Damn, I'm not as excited about this anymore. Sure I got a new spell down and have started on the tail, making no progress by the way as I am right about the need for runes, but the trip has been a drag on my patience.

Jed took a deep breath as we come out of a crack in the cliff side, letting us see a breath-taking sight of the Zion valley. Almost makes the trip worth it, almost. "Alright. I know it's been a long couple of weeks, but here we are. Zion. I know your feet hurt, I know you're all tired. But I need everyone's mind on the trail ahead. These parts can be dangerous if we're not careful."

The woman, Stella, opens her mouth again, "Ain't the trail ahead that worries me, Jed. Those descents we made, through that slot canyon back up there. Ain't no way we're getting back the way we came. And then what?"

Jed sighs as he rubs his head, "Goddammit, Stella, heard you the first time, and the fifteenth too. The New Canaanites will know a way. And if they don't, we got maps of the range in my supplies that we can look over if the need arises. Alright, get moving and keep an eye out for tribals! They are not the most friendly bunch out here!"

I make sure my rifle has a full clip as I match my pace with Jed to cover him as the bodyguards move up. A thump sounds next to me and I look over to see Jed is missing part of his chest cavity. The man doesn't even make a sound as he falls to the ground, eyes wide open, not even seeing the death coming. "Ambush!" I scream as I dive behind some rocks.

I see our three guards all try to take cover, but they don't quite reach any before bullets tear through their leather armor like butter. And I have now failed my job in five seconds. I peek out of cover in my focused state and count out the targets as I aim. I see nine in total and when I fire, the count falls to eight.

I stay up for three more seconds and luckily get four more people before my clip runs dry. The tribe members may have a drop on us, but with their lack of armor, they can not take a bullet at all. I focus once more and pop out on the other side of the rock, taking care of the rest in a haphazard fashion that wastes an entire clip, but killing three people in thirty bullets seems about right.

I reload as I pick myself up and head over to our supply cow. It apparently was considered a threat as there are about nine bullet holes in the creature's two heads. I pillage the remains of the supplies as I watch everywhere for any movement. I am able to grab the follower's payment plus everyone else's pay. I also took a sack of food that I drop into my backpack.

I took the ammo supply and a few explosives coupled with some nice jeans and dress shirts that are mostly in good conditions. Once the animal is looted dry, I pick myself up and shoulder my rifle as I advance. I may have made quick work of the supplies, but a minute is all an attacker needs to find a good position.

I start down the slope in front of me to see two tribals by a wooden bridge. We notice each other at the same time, but I was more ready and put three into each of their bodies. Their bodies lurch back under the hits and tumble off the side of the cliff, leaving only blood and one of their weapons behind.

Moving up, scanning the surroundings as I do so, I check out the weapon to see it like a tommy gun that the Yank gangsters use in the movies, but without the drum clip. I have no use for it, so I just grab the clip out of it and toss the gun off the cliff to join its wielder.

I run across the bridge and I get to the end to see a man behead one of the tribal members with an axe. I roll behind some cover and take aim at the tribal, but he doesn't do anything, but stand there looking at the dead body. "Man, these guys are bad fighters." I hear the man exclaim in accented English as he pushes the corpse off his rock.

I see the man sheath his blade and look around, "Now where is that survivor? Leader needs to talk to them." When I hear this, I take a chance and come out of my cover, my gun still trained on the man, but my finger off the trigger. If someone wants to talk with me, I can be cautious about it instead of killing everything that moves.

"Freeze!" I yell as I line up his head. "Don't move!" I follow up my command with a meaningless one to help get the order in the man's skull. The man does as I command after jumping in fright. "Who are you and are you with these people?" I call over in a stern voice, gesturing with the hand holding the barrel steady at the dead man at the base of the rock. Dumb question, but you never know.

"N-no! I- I am Follows-Chalk! These are the White Legs! I don't fight with these people, they are terrible human beings!" I squint at him as I lower my weapon to the man's relief. "You... You came from the outside, yes? From the civilized lands?"

"I wouldn't say civilized, but yes, I come from the Mojave Desert," I answer the man as he hops off the rock to stand in front of me.

"Wow! Joshua will want to hear about this." Speak of the devil, Graham is actually alive. The man seems to realize something and continue to speak. "Oh... Joshua Graham is our leader. Thanks to him, the Dead horses are strong and safe from our enemies. He'll want to talk to anyone coming up from south-ways. Will you follow?"

I think about it. While I do need to talk with Graham, this might be dangerous. Although, if they prove to be friendly, I could learn some medicine from them before I head back to the Followers. Plus I need a map anyways. "Alright. I'll talk with Graham."

Follows-Chalk smiles at this and beckons me to follow him. The man leads me along the path, cheerfully talking about this and that, asking any question that comes to mind about Vegas or life outside the canyon in general. "I hear people go to these big buildings and give money away to play cards and keep doing that until they are broke. Is that true?"

I answer the curious man, "Yeah, Casinos. They don't give their money away, they gamble it. You know, if they win they get more money, but if they lose, they lose the money they put in. Some people find it fun and if you do it with friends, it's a good old time."

The man says in an awe-filled voice, "Fascinating!" I chuckle a bit at his child-like wonder at common things, reminding me of first-years when they see magic for the first time. I only saw it once, but it was amusing. As we talk, a roar goes up around us that echoes along the valley.

A corpse of a giant gecko comes flying over a rock in front of us, putting me on alert. On the rock rose a Yao Guai that has blood all over its face. I pull out my sniper as the creature yells again and starts to stalk off the rock towards us. "Oh no, no, no, no, no! Run, it's going to ki-" I cut the man's panic off as he starts to backpedal with the sound of my suppressed rifle.

The round enters the creature's eye and it just drops. There is no exit wound which speaks of thick as hell hide that can stop a high-caliber bullet. "Well. That's dinner for the next few days," I observe as I lower my rifle. I wonder how mutated bear tastes?

"Y-y-y-y-you killed the beast!" Follows-Chalk yells as I sling my sniper onto my back. "Th-that's amazing!" I can almost see the stars twinkling in the man's eyes as he looks at me. Rather uncomfortable. Looks like that weird kid, Colin I think his name was, back at Hogwarts.

I shrug at him and grab the bear by the back leg. I tie a rope around the leg and to my waist. After a few pulls, I start moving nicely even with the half ton of pure muscle dragging behind me. "Shit this is heavy," I comment as if I'm talking about clouds. Follows-Chalk just picks up the pace and leads me to his tribe's camp.

It takes a good part of the day and leaves me with legs made of lead, but we manage to get to the camp across the valley. The water didn't help things either because, while I can avoid the road on the way here, the water leading to the camp is an entirely different story.

Thankfully, Follows-Chalk disables the traps in the water and moves them out of my way so they don't clamp down on the dead bear behind me. The moment we reach the camp, tribe members come out of their tents and help carry the bear out of the water and into the camp. I don't mind giving them the bear, so I follow them and once the corpse is situated, I give a hard stomp on its snort which knocked out a dozen teeth which I pocket. A little trophy that I can carry or make a necklace out of. Ooh, I'll do that with these things!

My plan set, I see Follows-Chalk waving his hand at me to come to him near the mouth of a cave. I'm going to guess that is where Joshua is, so I jog over and join him. "It is still amazing how you got that Yao Guai all the way here, you are indeed a mighty warrior!"

I have to bark out a laugh at this. When I see the questioning look on the man's face, I elaborate what's so funny. "I'm a doctor. Sure I've done far, far more than my fair share of murder, but I've never been called a warrior before."

"You're a medicine man?" Follows-Chalk questions as we head deeper in the cave.

"By the looks of his coat, he's one of the Followers of the Apocalypses," A deep voice answers for me from the other end of the cave. I look over to see a man wrapped in bandages from head to toe that is checking out some .45 pistols. "I apologize for you're welcome to our home, the White Legs beat us to it and they have very little manners with new people. I don't know if you were close to the other members of your group, but you have my sympathy. I pray for the safety of all good people who come to Zion, even Gentiles, but we can't expect God to do all the work."

"Thank you for your words sir. I came to help the traders make contact with the new Canaanites, but seeing as they're dead... Yeah. To be honest, I have no idea what to do now. I have absolutely no idea how to get out and back to the Mojave Desert and my boss wants me to learn some medical arts here to bring back. Anything I can do for you to get your help for these endeavors?"

The man nods as he continues to check out the pistols. "I have bad news for your employers. The New Canaan was destroyed, its citizens scattered. All because of the White Legs. And Caesar, of course. The White Legs want to join the Legion and their rite of passage was the destruction of New Canaanites, almost assuredly because of me. The good news is that we can help you find your way back. Daniel, one of the other New Canaanites, has made many maps of the regions. More bad news is that we do have problems and can't help you get back at the moment."

"Well, I can't just watch Legion scum mess with good people, so if I help you quell this little... issue, mind teaching me some of your medicine craft as well as some maps for a way out?"

"You're a good neighbor to us. We all go though periods of darkness. In such times, we can turn to the lord, but it's always goof to have friends. Daniel and I need Pre-War tools to help us navigate beyond Zion if the day comes we need to evacuate. Normally we would have some Dead Horses or Sorrows, Daniel's tribe, look for them, but many Pre-War buildings in the valley are taboo. They won't go inside. We need a compass from the crashed scout bus, a medpack from the ranger station, some lasting food from lunch boxes in the tourist center and last, we need a pair of walkie-talkies from the fishing lodge." Not a lot of stuff, but I can see how the walkie-talkies can be helpful for the two tribes.

"Follows-Chalk will go with you. He is inexperienced, but he knows enough about our language that he can ignore some of the taboos that follow their own. Have a safe trip and report to Daniel when you've collected everything." I nod at the man and leave the cave the way I came in.

Outside, I see the Yao Guai cooking over the fire. I smile when I see some of the children dance around the flames and see their parents follow their example to play with them. Follows-Chalk sees me come out of the cave and meets me halfway from the cave and camp. "So I hear that I will be going with you. I know where everything is too! Oh, this is so exciting!"

His enthusiasm is a welcome change to the deary task of walking. The man is so curious about the history of all the Pre-War things that no one talks about. So we talk as we walk and the only thing that breaks our conversation is when I shoot the occasional wild dog that thinks it can take us.

After an hour of walking, we come to a burnt out bus at the bottom of a ravine. The middle of the bus is torn open to the elements, but with one look through the bus, ignoring the small skeletons, I see a compass in one of the boy scout's hand. I gentle pry the thing from the poor child and check it over. The needle fell out inside it and the glass is cracked, but it is easy to fix with a little subtle magic with my back to Follows-Chalk. "Found one. Alright, let's get the radios next."

The trip to the tourist center is once more uneventful and we pass the time the same way as we did from the Dead Horse camp. Though I ask more question of where everything is. Follows-Chalk points out where the Sorrows' camp is and tells me a little about them. They are near pacifists in nature and hate needless violence. Their warriors are tough as one of their rites into their fighter numbers is to take down a Yao Guai with melee weapons. They also have the best medics thanks to their lack of war-like ways. I guess that is where I go to get some training.

"Wait! There's the Tourist place!" Follows-Chalk calls out, pointing at a building below us from the cliff we seem to have climbed at some point in out journey. I shrug and start to climb down the cliff face. There is enough ledges that I can almost just jump down the entire thing, except for the last part. There is a thirty foot drop between me and the ground, but I easily fix this by backing up to the rocks and taking off at the ledge.

The center is about fifteen feet tall, so I throw myself off the ledge and land on the roof of the building. The old wood nearly broke under my feet, but I forward roll to disperse my weight which leaves me sitting on top of the roof with a ruffled look about me. 'That was fun!' I laugh in my mind with a smile on my face.

I hop off the side of the building and kick in the door of the center. Inside I see a few giant mantises, but I just give them a bullet to the torso and they die quick enough. I root around the place for a bit and find a total of six lunch boxes that are still sealed with their food inside. I stuff them in my pack just as Follows-chalk runs in, sweating from his workout. "What the shit man!" The man yells in his thick accent. "Don't go jumping down cliffs like that, it's dangerous!"

I can only chuckle under my breath as I pass the man. "Found the food, now where is the Fishing lodge?" The man's answer is cut short as a bullet slams into the side of the center. I look down the road as I shoulder my rifle to see three White Legs charging us. Two have flaming swords I believe are called shishkabobs. The gunman is a guy with a pistol that is trying to unjam it.

My eyebrows furrow at the sheer amount of stupidity in front of me. I simple shake my head and let a burst of slugs take down each until there is no longer a living soul. I look over at Follows-Chalk and the man is staring at the dead group too. "They are usually more... prepared than that," the man mumbles as he starts off down the road.

The Fishing lodge is a gold mine. I raid the liquor cabinet for the booze and find a key to a safe and the radios. I make sure to grab everything in the cabinet and gun safe which amounts to over a hundred rounds of .45s that I dump into a pouch that I dubbed the forty-five section within my bag, so I don't mix them up with my nine millimeters. The booze goes with the small supply I keep on me. Never know when you might want a good stiff drink.

"Okay, got my liquor and your radios. Now we just need to go to the Ranger Station for the medpack."

"These Pre-War buildings stink like a month dead gecko," Follows-Chalk comments as he sniffs near a fridge which probably has food older than both of us combined in it.

We head out and make our way to the Station with no problems. I find the pack in the back and using some alcohol, I am able to sterilize the bandages that has been cracked up with time as well as salvage what is left. The pack is a lot like my pouch on my leg, but with stuff from a doctor bag in there as well. The pack even has the infamous medical hatchet in it.

I toss the bag into my backpack and we are good. I let Follows-Chalk look around the station for a few more minutes until he gets bored. "For a taboo place, this is kind of bland," he laughs as we leave. I nod my head as I chuckle at the joke. "Hey, let's go to the ranger outpost! The view from up there is amazing and I can show you where everything is in the valley. Plus the sun will be setting sun and the sight is excellent, is that the word?" I nod in agreement to both parts of what he spoke about and we head out.

It takes until around six o'clock to clammer up the side of the mountain where the outpost is, but the sight of the descending sun is worth it. The two of us spent a hour looking to see where everything is, and I make sure to focus on the image to get a good image of it al We are sitting on some rocks next to the cliff side as I clean my rifle for the day and Follows-Chalk is examining something he took from the tourist center. It looks like one of the little dinos that people can buy in Novac. Those things are everywhere. l.

I wonder why there are so many for one location. I mean, tourism and all, but is the number of them really all that necessary?

A crack sounds and Follows-Chalk gives a cry as he slips forward. I follow him down and hide behind the rock next to the groaning man. That was a gunshot. 'How many times am I going to be ambushed today?! This is ridiculous! For the love of everything holy, just let me watch the sun in peace!'

I pop out of cover and see ten of the White Legs bearing down on us from a high ground. 'Well shit.' I duck behind cover before any of the bullets can take my head off and check out my partner. The bullet went clean through his left side, probably going through the small intestine. It's bad and needs to be fixed quickly, but I can't really do that here! I glance over the side of the cliff and see that there is water below us. I grab the moaning tribal by the arm, "How deep is the water below us?!"

The man stares at me with unfocused eyes for a few seconds as he groans before he answers, "Five man deep, eh! Why?" I grab him up in my arms and make a dash at the cliffside. I fling us both off the edge as bullets slam into the ground around us. Follows-Chalk starts to scream louder as we advance to the ledge and as I jump, I take a clean on in the leg as we start to descend towards the dark waters.

I let the tribal in my arms go as I straighten up for the hit. Follows-Chalk tries to do the same, but was still too out of it to brace himself. I go under the clear water and look to my side where Follows-Chalk is squirming around. I hook my arm around him and paddle shore. I don't waste a second in putting the man on my shoulder in a fireman's carry before booking it away.

The White Legs takes some potshots at us, but we are too far away for them to get a bead on us. I move as I can go with a hole in my calf muscle which is not too fast. Any animal stupid enough to get in my way got a nine millimeter hole in their head from my darling Maria. We are closest to the Sorrows' camp, so that is where I am heading. I can fix up Follows-Chalk in safety quite easily.

With my desperate speed, we reach the camp in only twenty minutes. I can still hear Follows-Chalk's weak heart beat behind my head, so I still have time as I splash through the little river to the tribe's camp.

Then some twisted karma happens. I step right onto a bear trap and it embeds itself just below my bullet wound. "FUCK! AHHH!" I scream out shrilly as I pitch forward, dropping Follows-Chalk into the water as I grab my injured leg. "Stupid sunsabitches. I swear to Merlin, I am going to fucking torture the person who put this down! Fucking shit!" More profanities follow as I try to pry the trap off my leg.

The release is not there, so it seems like I'm crawling. Huffing, I start to move, but the pain increases by ten folds as the trap stops. I look back to see it is spiked into the ground. I start laughing hysterically as I pull out Maria and put the rest of her rounds into the stake, blowing the piece of shit apart.

With tears streaming down my eyes from the pain, I hook my arm around Follows-Chalk and begin to drag him up the river. I see a few people coming towards us and I about shot them if not for the leader wearing a farmer's hat. The man comes to a stop next to me and orders his tribe to get Follows-Chalk to safety in their native tongue. Through gritted teeth, I ask, "You Daniel?"

"Yes, I apologize for the trap," Daniel says as he helps me to my feet. "I make them to hinder the White Legs as much as possible and that means taking the release off. I will have to destroy the springs inside the trap to get it off. It will hurt I'm afraid."

I growl out at him, "I should put a bullet in your head for this! I mean, I just got shot in that leg too!" The man once more apologizes as he half carries me into his camp. The camp looks similar to the Dead horse's, but more spread out on the cliffs. The man places me in their medicine man tent as he leaves to get the tools needed for the job of removing the bear trap. I pass out from the pain long before the man gets back.


	8. 8 - Why Would I?

**So I'm back. Sorry, School may not have been busy, but I've been going hard at my strength training so I am dead the moment I get home. I would lay in bed and think, 'shit need to post' BAM, I'm asleep and I wake up at eight with a headache. Anyways, here is the next chapter of Vulpine Wizard**

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><p>8 - Why would I?<p>

When I awaken, I find that I am in just my boxers, my leg is bandaged up and it is day light. In that order. I sigh as I rummage in my backpack. The supplies are still there and I see all my bags around the backpack, so I check them to see I have everything, they just took my pants which were probably ruined trying to take the trap off.

At least they didn't kill me in my sleep for being a freak. Man, I am not having a lucky time keeping my freakishness a secret anymore it seems. Had a good four year run though. I grab a few stimpacks and jab them into my leg to heal up the wound as well as take some of the pain out of things. After a few hours of reading, I see Daniel walk in. "Ah, you're awake. I need to cut to the chase, what the hell are you?"

I scowl at his rudeness before I sit up from the ground, "I'm a person that had the misfortune of getting infected by some radiated fox gene thing." I pause at this and then continue with, "I have no fucking idea man, main reason I hid it. It's weird and unknown. You know how insane people are these days. Having a tail would just be like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Anyways, while I have to thank you for taking the trap off, I'm still pissed that it was your trap that tried to eat my leg in the first place."

The man chuckles as he takes a seat next to me, seeming to dismiss the tail as nothing. "Yeah, I am still sorry about that."

I sigh at the man before dragging my pack closer. "Is Follows-Chalk still alive?" I ask as I rummage in my bag for the Pre-War supplies I had to go get for this guy and his tribe.

"Yeah, it was a close thing, but God was looking down on us that day and he will be making a full recovery," Daniel says with a preacher-like smile.

'This guy is totally like the burned man, isn't he.' I think to myself before I reply, "That's good. Hate to see the guy die after something as stupid as an ambush. Well... I got you the supplies for your evacuation. Hope they were worth trouble of getting." I hand him the items in question and a guard for the tent that I hadn't noticed until now grabs them and takes them away. 'Alright then.'

"Thank you. These will be a godsend when we have to leave. I was losing hope we could get any of these, much less all of them. Tribals are smart but... they are ignorant. They have a hard time getting over their taboos. Who knew all we needed was a Gentile... uh... no offense."

I look at him blankly, "I have no idea what that word means, so as long as it doesn't insult my mum, I don't care. So you're not sticking around to defend your home?"

The man shakes his head as a reply, "No. The Sorrows are a peaceful and sensitive tribe. They are too... innocent if you can believe that, to fight to the death for their home. Joshua wants us to help him, but..." The man petters out as he thinks of the right thing to say.

"It would permanently change these lovely people into a band of killers?" I suggest.

Daniel nods his head, staring at the ground. "I know it is the cowardly thing to do, but we are not like Joshua where the fire in his soul still burns with rage. I just don't want any of the Sorrows to turn out like that man." There is a pregnant silence after this until he clears his throat to change the subject. "Anyways, if we are to evacuate. We will need to scout out some locations where the White Legs are, disable some of the traps they have set on a nearby bridge and try to recover a map of the grand Staircase, a wilderness area to the east. Do you think you'll be up for these tasks? Waking Cloud will be able to guide you around to where we think the camps are, she is one of our best warriors with an uncanny ability to sneak around. I'm really am sorry to ask this of you, but we need all the help we can get. "

I look at the man and I see he truly is sorry that he has to ask an injured man to do this. "Sure. I'll be up and at it in a day or two. I'll kill all the White Legs I find on the way, but... In the time I am healing, do you think you could get one of your medicine men to teach me your ways? I'm a follower as you can tell and well... Learning never stops as they say," I sheepishly grin, embarrassed about the request.

Daniel chuckles and nods, "I'll have Dancing Moon come over and teach you some of our medicines. We don't have a lot, but we have good antidotes and the like. Having to fight Cazadors have made us have to increase our skills with poisons. Rest up and again, I'm sorry about the... Bear trap." On these words, the man left me.

I blink at his quick exit before rummaging in my pack and pull out the pair of jeans. I pull them on and find them rather loose, so I take a leather belt from my pack and belt the pants up so they don't fall past my hips. I allow it to be a little lose so my tail could get past the top of them without discomfort that usually comes with pressing it down.

Bored and sore, I grab my sniper and clean it, so that it is ready for the assassinations I will be having her do when I'm back on my feet. I make sure her scope is clean and that the fall didn't damage her in anyway.

I finish checking over the weapon just as a bald woman comes in with supplies in a leather bag. "Greetings, I am Dancing Moon."

Over the next three days, Dancing Moon teaches me all she can on her tribe's medicine which is inferior to my own medicine, but the combat medicine is amazing. Their antidotes are fast acting and effective and the same can be said about their poisons. She teaches me all about the poisons too so I know the symptoms and how to fight them. There was so much more to learn, but I can run with only moderate pain, so it is time to go. As I walk out of the tent, I see Joshua approaching and a woman with feathers framing her head a ways behind him coming towards us.

Joshua greets me with a biblical style quote, "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem who said, 'Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation.' O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed. Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. Do you know what it means?" What the fuck.

I shrug with a confused look on my face and think it over for a second, "You want to... beat the hell out of the White Legs instead of leave?" I half answer, half ask.

The man nods, "Given those two choices, yes. In the best of all possible worlds, they would just leave us in peace, but they won't. I don't enjoy killing, but when done righteously, it's just a chore, like any other." I prefer just to clean honestly. "Practiced hands make for short work. And the good Lord knows there's much to be done here."

"I get what you are saying and I'll help you kill the Legion scum, but I'm not understanding what you want here."

"I'll make it simple then. I and the Dead Horses are prepared to do what must be done to protect Zion from the White Legs. And though Daniel won't accept it yet, there are many Sorrows who are also prepared. They may not be warriors, but this is their home. If you have a chance to speak to Daniel about this, ask him to consider defending Zion instead of abandoning it. He has good intentions, but I fear that if we evacuate the Sorrows from this place, it will be lost to them, and us, forever."

"Daniel will not agree. The man is set on keeping the Sorrows out of the fighting and... I have to agree with him. They may be ready, but even someone like me can't, even with good intentions, ask the man to make these people fight. They are far too innocent and that will just get in their way. You know this man! You've led an army of monsters against people! These tribals aren't killer and will freeze the moment they see the sight of life leaving a man's eye. You and I have witnessed the worst out of man, but these people have only been shot at a few times. They would crumble under any real fight against people."

Joshua nods to my words and I continue, "Look, I'm joining you, for the sole purpose to lessen the size of the Legion army. I'm about to go out and kill a few of their war camps as well to cut down on their manpower too. You can get your walkie-talkie from Daniel if you haven't already and after the battle is over and we have won, the Sorrows can come back with a simple call."

"This is a mistake, but I see I can not persuade you on this topic as I can not persuade Daniel. I must thank you for your aid and saving Follow-Chalk from the White Leg as well. May the lord watch over you doctor." With this, Joshua left towards Daniel's tent. As Joshua leaves, who I can assume is Waking Cloud comes forward. The woman is wearing the same thing as Dancing moon, simple leather armor to cover the bare essentials with a bald head.

"Daniel told me to guide you on the scouting trip. Let's make haste and find the White Legs." I nod and we head off into the desert. A thought comes to mind, 'Did Graham just not see my tail or is that man so hell-bent on killing the White Legs he just doesn't care?' The thought only comes to my mind due to see my tail swishing behind me out of the corner of my eye.

Our first stop is to the cave where the amp is, so says Waking Cloud. The cave is called Morning Glory and we make our way there in only a dozen or so minutes. The valley is small unless you have a Yao Guai roped to your back.

We enter the cave and the moment Waking Cloud sees the interior, she stops with wide-eyes. "We should not be here! This place... it belongs to the Father in the Caves! We must not profance it with our touch!"

I blink at her. Is this their religion? "What is the Father in the Caves?"

"The Father in the Caves?! He's the Holy Father who gave the Sorrows His succor and gave the New Canaanites His son! Many of the caves around the valley are sacred to him, and those who trespass are punished by holy wraith!"

I rub my face before I answer the best way I can without insulting her, "I understand this is your religion, but we NEED the map to the Grand Staircase. I'm sure your Father in the Caves wouldn't want his children to be harmed just because of his word, right?"

"I-I guess... so. Just, don't touch anything you don't have to!" I nod as I make sure my gun is fully loaded. This cave could be the home of another Yao Guai or something, so I lead with my rifle. It is a good thing I do too, as a plant in front of us rises up and tries to spit acid at me. I am able to sidestep and put a burst into the plant, the bullets tearing it off its stem.

I look around the room and find several similar plants as that one, so I focus and destroy them all with a burst from my rifle. I reload and continue forward into the cave, watching the walls for any signs of the mutated plant-life. Waking Cloud follows behind while mumbling prayers under her breath, asking for forgiveness from her Father.

I find no more plants and after climbing up to the upper levels, careful to avoid the rusty bear trap on the way up, I find a little shack with a a bedroll and computer in it. I ignore the couple as my sight zones in on the dufflebag in the corner.

I open the rough materialed-bag to find a trench coat, jeans with sewn in Kevlar knee pads, military issue combat boots, a metal breastplate with kevlar lining on the side, a pack of cigarettes, a 40mm grenade, a few bricks of .45 and 5.56 bullets each, and a helmeted gas mask with red eyes. "Holy shit, this is... A complete Ranger's combat uniform!" I exclaim with wide eyes when I see the breastplate and helmet. I quickly pack it away after looking through the pockets for any extra things. Under the pair of pants, I find the map I came for.

'I'll fix the armor up later,' I tell myself as I put the map in my scholar satchel. Thank the gods this thing is water proof or I would be so pissed when I had to jump into the water. I see Waking Cloud looking around at the shack, so I call over, "I have the map, let's get out of here."

The woman nods and almost sprints out of the room. I have a hard time following her with my recently healed injury , but she thankfully waits outside the cave for me. Once outside we start or trek to where we think the White Legs are.

We make good time to the camp by the bighorn Bluff as Waking Cloud tell me. I pull out my sniper as we come over a raise that overlooks the camps location. From the voices, there are people there, so the information is solid.

I prop my rifle up and lean out of cover. I see nine White Legs in the camp, all with tommy guns on their person or large machetes. I shake my head and pull out something I took from my dead caravan. Two hand grenades. "Cover your ears Cloud," I whisper over to the woman next to me. Without waiting for her, I pull the pin on both the hand-held explosives and flung them into the enemy's midst. The tribals do not notice a thing as they are talking to one another in loud voices. I count down from nine in my head and at one, the explosive blows up in a large display of shrapnel and gore.

I have to duck back down so I don't catch a stray piece of shrapnel with my face and I make sure Waking Cloud is still behind cover. Once the bloody rain settles, I leave the cover with my pistol in hand and execute the remaining White Legs that are screaming on the ground.

Waking Cloud follows me, but the moment she sees all the gore, she stumbles to the side and loses her lunch before collapsing into a ball a few feet away from the sickness. I can pick up faint whimpering from her direction as I finish things up. I made the right call, these people are not made for war.

I crouch next to her and draw her into a hug which she gladly accepts, burying her face into my shirt. I wrap one of my arms around her as I keep lookout with my pistol at the ready. The woman cries herself out in only a few minutes. In this time, I don't see any one come to check out the noise, but I really do not want to stick around for the other camp to investigate. I get her up and lead her out of the bloody camp, keeping her face in my shoulder so she doesn't catch any stray glimpses.

After we get a ways away, she starts to calm down. "I-I-" She stutters out before I shush her.

I crouch down in front of her to look under her hands that are covering her face. "Go back to the camp, Waking Cloud. I'll take care of the bridge guards and the remaining camp." The woman nods like a scared child and runs back to her camp, trying to get as far from the scene of death as possible. I don't blame her too much. If that is among your first kill, to see nine men turn into a bloody mess and then executed, that would get to even the hardest men. Gods above and below, I truly have lost all connection to the value of human life.

I head back to the camp and following the path, I see why the other camp didn't attack because of the explosion. There is a few corpses of cazadors around along with three Yao Guai cub along with their mama dead on the ground, all surrounded by about fifteen White Legs. The bastards got taken down by the wildlife and by the looks of things, only a few hours ago as some of the blood is still wet.

I loot the camp and start to the bridge. I arrive at the bridge with no problem, but the moment I step foot on the wooden thing, I start taking gunfire from the hilltop across the way. I focus as I pull my weapon and see four people taking potshots at me with pistols. I can only shake my head and line up my shot as I duck behind a stone support.

A quick couple of bursts later and the White Legs are dead. Some still on the hill, but some ended up rolling off into the ravine to be eaten by the local wildlife down there. Leave it to the legion to find people dumber than raiders to join their cause. For the traps, I just take a few sticks and set them off as I walk down the road. With that down, I head back to Daniel to report the success of the jobs.

Once I arrive back, I see the man walking around in the river, so I splash over to him and say, "The White legs along the bridge and in their camps are all dead. I have the map to the grand Staircase right here and that should be everything." I turn over the map to the man and he takes it with a grin on his face.

"I appreciate all of this. Well, that's all there is left to do. Now we just have to quietly leave and get out without being noticed. That's assuming Joshua won't try to stop me. And that he hasn't talked you into fighting the White Legs despite what I've said. Don't worry... haa... I don't hold it against you. You're a ge-... an outsider. Sorry. Fighting seems like a practical solution, but there's more than that at stake."

"Don't worry Daniel. While I am going to go fight, it is because I have to. This isn't about the tribes for me. I was here to learn medicine, but when I learned that the White Legs aligned themselves with the Legion, and well... I wasn't leaving here until they all are dead at my feet anyways. I don't want your people here to see that either, Especially after seeing one of your elite warriors cry at the sight of nine dead bodies. This is your home though, so yes, leave while you can, but keep that walkie-talkie handy for Joshua's call. We are doing this soon, so hold up in the area for two days. We can win this and if we don't... well, you are already leaving, so you can just continue to go."

Daniel looks down and nods. "Okay. Okay, that sounds manageable. Thank you for the help my friend and I wish you well and that God watches over you in this darkest of times." I pat the man on the shoulder and make my way to Joshua to inform him that the Sorrows are truly out of this fight.

I find the tribe ready for battle and Joshua loading his firearm in front of them. "The war parties are dead and the roads open. Daniel is taking the Sorrows away. I would not convince him about needing to fight after seeing an 'elite' warrior cry when she saw a grenade aftermath."

Joshua sighs and nods his head when he hears this. "I thought it over and my men agree that the Sorrows would have just gotten in the way. I have a man here with the radio waiting for our return to contact Daniel about our victory. Thank you for what you have done and I hope to see you with me after the battle. Our objective is to lead a group of my men into the White Leg's camp and find their leader, Salt-Upon-Wounds in Three Marys and stop him from fleeing. There can be no mercy, this is an extermination, nothing less."

"Let's do this then," I tell him.

"God be with you." I can see the man smile under his bandages as he waves me and his men forward. We march onto the White Leg camp as the sun slowly lowers into the horizon, casting long shadows that will work in our favor.

We run into a few little patrols of White Legs, but they do not een get a chance to scream before we gun them down. We make good time and by the time the moon is overhead, we are charging their camp with Dead horse fighters swarming everywhere.

Joshua and I charge the front with our squad of men to fight them head on. I stay in the back with my rifle and take down anyone that has the high ground in the fight while Joshua and his tribe tackles the threat on our level. The night air erupts in the sounds of multiple gunfights as we advance down the canyon towards their leader's camp.

We reach a dip in the path and have to swim across to reach land we can stand on once more. I take point and as I come up from under the water, my world turns white as explosives rock the world around me. I fall abck into the water and with blurred vision, see rocks fall down and into our path.

Joshua hauls me out of the water and to land. "This is taking too long. We can't let Salt-Upon-Wounds escape. I'm going to find a way around. God willing, we will finish this together." I pat the man on the arm and he runs off to somewhere, but my eyes were still watering from the flash, so I couldn't tell which way he went.

I continue up a little incline next to me and cross over a arch to find a cave. 'That's convenient,' I think to myself as I draw out Morgana. I lead with the gun and fire at any White Legs that stand in my way, not letting anyone hear my approach in the soft sand. Sometimes having bare feet is a bad thing, but it works out well in these situations.

It isn't long until I find the exit and get out to rejoin the fighting around me. As I run through the canyon, I see mini gunfights all around me and when I can, I take down a few White legs to help along the fighting and cause a bit of chaos for my enemies.

I start running as I hear an increase in fighting ahead as well as Joshua's voice booming over the sound of the bullets, commanding his men in the battle. I arrive to see the tail end of the fight and the men capture a few of the White Legs. Joshua checks his weapons over as I approach and his men bring forward the captives from the fast gun fight.

I stand silently next to Joshua as a total of ten White Legs were brought forward and put on their knees. At the end, I see a man with a special headdress that I can guess to be the chief. In cold blood, Joshua pulls out his forty-five and execute all of the grunts in front of their chief. The chief struggles and yells, but it doesn't do a thing. All I do is stand in front of the chief and watch the first Legate do his work.

"We warn you at Syracuse, and you persisted. You took advantage of us at New Canaan to drive us out, and like the dogs of Caesar you are, you followed us to Zion." The man can only shake as Joshua's voice gets harsher as his speech goes along. "And now you stand on holy ground, a temple to God's glory on Earth. But the only use for an animal in our temple is sacrifice! Kale watcha nei conserva oh! You understand me, don't you? Don't you?!" The man's voice could freeze water as he asks the question.

The chief suddenly looks up at me, "Outman! Kuna-man mad! He kill all White Legs! You talk! You stop!" He commands me. The man tries to command me from on his knees. Classic Legion arrogance.

I crouch down next to him and pull out Morgana, the suppressor taken off it for cleaning and I never bothered to put it back on. "You understand me?" I ask the man in a casual voice as I bring the pistol forward, the barrel lazily pointed towards the ground in a semi-nonthreatening manner. I am an enemy with a loaded gun, so it can never be fully nonthreatening.

The man frantically nods. "Good. You see this pistol, Friend?" I ask him tapping the barrel against my leg. Once more the man nods as an answer. "This pistol was used to kill Caesar." The man's eyes widen as they lock onto the gun in question. "The bullet that blew his sick little head off came from this little weapon. So... Friend," I say with a slight growl and twisted smile on my face. "Why would I talk Joshua out of killing you if I was willing to kill the man you sought to join?" I ask with a small gesture with my gun and shoulders. The smile still on my face, the amusement of seeing the piss-inducing fear in a Legion scum's face flooding my veins. Better than watching a prank from the Weasley twins on Snape.

The war chief's eyes widen as I back away and just as he starts to turn, Joshua puts a bullet through his head, the bone and brains spraying out of the exit wound, coating the ground where I once stood. The man's body falls into the slow-moving water and his blood mixes with the liquid, making a trail of tainted water flowing out the way we came in. "And God's work is complete." Joshua states as he holsters his pistol. "Thanks to your help and the grace of God, the White Legs won't be troubling Zion anymore. Let's go tell Daniel. Tomorrow will be here soon enough. And there is much to do."

I too holster my weapon as I scratch my head. This really wasn't what I signed up to do. "Alright. Yeah, let's get Daniel back before he thinks us dead." I did have fun though, except for the being shot and trapped part.

For the next three months, I help everything get settled back down. I take care of a Yao Guai infestation once I've rested from the battle and once everything starts running smooth and everyone is back, I am able to start up my lessons once more. Joshua even gifts me with his pistol, a .45 with Greek lettering on the side that says "A Light Shining in Darkness." The pistol was so nice that I discarded Maria except for her grip decal which I magicked into fitting on the .45, merging the two. I still call her Maria, but she is now a sexy weapon instead of a sexy ornamental tool.

Dancing Moon taught me everything she knew about medicine and in return, I taught her the basics of what I knew that she could use in the setting we were in. I master the glamour charm for my ears, but have to renew it every three hours, so I'll need to have that mounted like I first thought. I have given up on my tail completely as there is no way I can make my magic do what I wanted to be done with it. I may have worked around runes with my security with an excess of power, but this is one thing will not be working around.

By the end of the third month, I am ready to go back to Mojave and join back up with my pack. I bid the tribe a farewell after I am prepared, wearing my usual vest, coat and bandages, but what is new is my padded jeans from the Ranger uniform which I have made into pristine condition, but made sure there was still loose. Sure I need a belt, but I can easily hide my tail in the mess of denim. I also have my gas mask and helmet on standby so that I can run through the desert and not breath in a pound of dust.

The trip back to the Mojave desert took well over a month and half of a second before I find my way back to Vegas. In that time, I mostly walked and worked on a few spells to ease my living. I made a campfire spell that burns green from the intensity, but I can lower the heat at will. I made that into a combative spell the moment I saw the damage it could do to an animal's body. Some basic hygiene spells like cleaning and fresh shaving. Since I never carried a razor and my combat knife was more of a short sword, I rarely shaved, so I made the spell to help that along. It shaves off all the hair from the nose down to baby smooth, but I don't care enough to fine tune it. As long as my head hair is fine. The cleaning just took a layer of grime off things. I could do it for dirt and the likes off my body, but it leaves an unclean feeling, like the dirt was still kind of there, so I stuck with cleaning my weapons of gunk and blood.

By the time I get back to the cave where we started the adventure from, it has been six months since I left and I do believe my birthday has been here and passed. I'm eighteen. I can finally drink alcohol, woo!

The air is hot-ish, but I can feel the familiar waves that comes with the height of summer which it would be seeing as I left sometime in February. I've been in the wastes for over five years and have done more than I thought I ever could with my life. Damn... I've killed a _lot_ of people in that time. With this in mind, I start my hike to the followers to get back to my pack and a nice warm bed. While I love my pack, after half a year of sleeping on the ground, my bed is what I look forward to the most.


End file.
